5 Simple Steps to Make Feeling Like Crap Benefit You

Written on 7/25/2008 by Jonathan Mead who writes about the less boring side of personal development at illuminatedmind.net.

A lot of people would have you believe that trying to stay positive and upbeat all the time is the path to happiness.

While I agree that maintaining a positive attitude and looking on the bright side of things is important, it's definitely not everything. If you're so focused on the positive that you're in denial of the negative parts of your life, you have a problem.

Ignorance isn't bliss if you're efforts to ignore are in vain. Trying to repress your problems and look on the bright side of things isn't going to solve anything. In fact, it can make them worse.

So if staying positive and putting a smile on your face isn't everything, then what is? I think the answer is really taking a closer look at why you're feeling like crap in the first place. Simply smiling and looking on the bright side is like trying to put a band aid on a cut throat. It just doesn't cut it.

Here's my advice on hacking at the root of negativity, instead of clipping the twigs and the leaves:

• Pay attention to what's making you feel negative. It all starts with awareness right? A lot of people don't want to face their negative emotions. And for good reason, it's unpleasant. But if we deny all our negative feelings, we're really denying ourselves and before long, there won't be much left.


• Realize that negativity is there to help you. Negative emotions and responses are there for a reason. They're trying to tell us something just isn't right. Instead of just feeling your negative feelings, try to dig deep and see what's causing them. You might have to go through a few layers of emotions before you find the root.


• Is it really important, or are you just whining? This is one of the most important questions you can ask and really forces you to be honest with whether you're just whining, or if your feelings are legitimate. After all, a really negative person, can make even the best situation seem terrible. In the same way an overly (unhealthily) positive person can make even the most negative situation seem positive.
  
  See, this article. If you think you're just whining, complaining and making excuses, you probably are. This is the test if it's something that can be fixed with an adjustment of your attitude, or if it's going to take some deeper work.


• Untie the knot. In Buddhism, there's a concept called internal formations. Basically, when you have a negative emotion: anger, fear, frustration, depression, or despair, it's telling you there's something you need to take a look at. By simply accepting our negative feelings, we can witness the source and being to "untie the knot." When we find the root, we can go to work at what caused the knot to take form, and begin to discover how we can release it.


• Look at the root. After we untie the knot, it's important that we look at the root of the knot in the first place. Let's say you're feeling like crap because you don't like your job. So you untie the knot, you take a day off of work and recoup. But going to work at the root, means solving the problem that caused the knot in the first place. If you really hate your job, figure out why and find a way to fix it. That might mean changing positions, working with new people, or simply quitting. Do whatever it takes to solve the problem directly, instead of making a quick fix.

We can either use the personality approach, trying to remain positive, focus on what we're grateful for, etc. Or we can be honest and realize that our negative emotions are trying to tell us something: something sucks and we need to do something about it.

It's the difference between taking the red pill or the blue pill. Do you want to live in truth, or denial?

Jonathan

You Can Play Native American Flute Part 3

The final chapter in releasing you musical ability with the oldest and easiest instrument that anyone can play.Yes you can play Native American Flute

NASA Satellites Discover What Powers Northern Lights

NASA Satellites Discover What Powers Northern Lights

Published on Jul 24, 2008 - 9:41:35 AM

By: NASA

A collection of ground-based All-Sky Imagers (ASI) captures the aurora brightening caused by a substorm. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

GREENBELT, Md., July 24 2008 - Researchers using a fleet of five NASA satellites have discovered that explosions of magnetic energy a third of the way to the moon power substorms that cause sudden brightenings and rapid movements of the aurora borealis, called the Northern Lights.

The culprit turns out to be magnetic reconnection, a common process that occurs throughout the universe when stressed magnetic field lines suddenly snap to a new shape, like a rubber band that's been stretched too far.

"We discovered what makes the Northern Lights dance," said Dr. Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of California, Los Angeles. Angelopoulos is the principal investigator for the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms mission, or THEMIS.

Substorms produce dynamic changes in the auroral displays seen near Earth's northern and southern magnetic poles, causing a burst of light and movement in the Northern and Southern Lights.

Substorms often accompany intense space storms that can disrupt radio communications and global positioning system signals and cause power outages. Solving the mystery of where, when, and how substorms occur will allow scientists to construct more realistic substorm models and better predict a magnetic storm's intensity and effects.

"As they capture and store energy from the solar wind, the Earth's magnetic field lines stretch far out into space. Magnetic reconnection releases the energy stored within these stretched magnetic field lines, flinging charged particles back toward the Earth's atmosphere," said David Sibeck, THEMIS project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "They create halos of shimmering aurora circling the northern and southern poles."

Scientists directly observe the beginning of substorms using five THEMIS satellites and a network of 20 ground observatories located throughout Canada and Alaska. Launched in February 2007, the five identical satellites line up once every four days along the equator and take observations synchronized with the ground observatories. Each ground station uses a magnetometer and a camera pointed upward to determine where and when an auroral substorm will begin. Instruments measure the auroral light from particles flowing along Earth's magnetic field and the electrical currents these particles generate.

During each alignment, the satellites capture data that allow scientists to precisely pinpoint where, when, and how substorms measured on the ground develop in space. On Feb. 26, 2008, during one such THEMIS lineup, the satellites observed an isolated substorm begin in space, while the ground-based observatories recorded the intense auroral brightening and space currents over North America.

These observations confirm for the first time that magnetic reconnection triggers the onset of substorms. The discovery supports the reconnection model of substorms, which asserts a substorm starting to occur follows a particular pattern. This pattern consists of a period of reconnection, followed by rapid auroral brightening and rapid expansion of the aurora toward the poles. This culminates in a redistribution of the electrical currents flowing in space around Earth.

THEMIS is the fifth medium-class mission under NASA's Explorer Program. The program, managed by the Explorers Program Office at Goddard provides frequent flight opportunities for world-class space investigations in heliophysics and astrophysics. The University of California, Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., managed the project development and is currently operating the THEMIS mission. ATK Space (formerly Swales Aerospace) of Beltsville, Md., built the THEMIS satellites.

The THEMIS team's findings will appear online July 24 in Science Express and Aug. 14 in the journal science. For more information about the THEMIS mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/themis

Midwestern man shoots mower, voids warranty

A 56-year-old man from the Wisconsin has been arrested after shooting his "Lawn-Boy" mower because it would not start.

Last Updated: 12:03PM BST 26 Jul 2008

Keith Walendowski told police he shot his lawnmower because it was not working Photo: AP

"I can do that," Keith Walendowski told Milwaukee police after his arrest. "It’s my lawn mower and my yard, so I can shoot it if I want."

Police charged Mr Walendowski with possession of a short-barreled shotgun or rifle and disorderly conduct.

He could face a fine of up to $11,000 and six years and three months in prison, if convicted.

A woman who lives with Mr Walendowski told police he had been drinking, according to the complaint.

Police arrested Mr Walendowski in his basement and recovered a shotgun, shells, a handgun and also a stun gun at the home.

Mr Walendowski said he would tell police "the truth," according to the complaint.

"I got pissed because my lawn mower wouldn’t start, so I got my shotgun and shot it," he said.

As for the mower, a local retailer said the gunshot damage could make its repair unlikely.

"Anything not factory recommended would void the warranty," Dick Wagner of Wagner’s Garden Mart told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Sierra NightSky for the period starting Friday, July 25, 2008 by Jim Kaler

Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes" Walt Whitman

Current Moon PhaseThe Moon's current phase, courtesy of USNO.
Sierra NightSky for the period starting Friday, July 25, 2008 by Jim Kaler

Passing last quarter during daylight (in North America) on Friday, July 25, the Moon begins to fade away as it enters its waning crescent phase and heads towards new on Friday, August 1, at which time it will totally eclipse the Sun and present a fine sight for people in Europe (Russia) and Asia (China), but not in North America. A partial solar eclipse will be visible in extreme northern North America, and will cover nearly all of Europe and Asia except for Spain, Portugal, and Japan. (Paired with this eclipse will be a partial lunar eclipse on August 16, which will be invisible in North America as well.) Back to home, the last glimpse of the thin crescent will be the morning of Thursday, July 31, in eastern twilight. Look next week for the waxing crescent in western evening twilight. On Tuesday the 29th, the waning crescent goes through perigee, bringing higher-than-usual tides to the coasts.

Of the ancient planets, the only one now readily visible is Jupiter, which is seen rising gloriously in the southeast in early evening. Bright and beautiful, hard to miss, Jupiter crosses the meridian to the south around 11:30 PM Daylight. Its retrograde, westerly, motion against the background stars has returned it to a lovely position just to the northeast of the Little Milk Dipper in Sagittarius, the locally bright stars making the planet's motion from week-to-week quite obvious. Of the "missing" bright planets, only Mercury makes some sort of news, as it passes superior conjunction with the Sun (on the other side of the Sun) on Tuesday, the 29th. Saturn and Mars are quite lost in evening twilight.

With the Moon nicely out of the way, we have a good chance to witness one of the better meteor showers of the year, the Southern Delta Aquarids, named after a southern star in Aquarius that marks the region of the sky from which the meteors seem to come (which involves the direction of the meteoroid stream about the Sun combined with the orbital motion of the Earth). The shower is visible from late July into early August with a broad peak around Monday, July 28, when under a dark sky it will produce perhaps 20 meteors a minute. The best time to look will be around 3 or 4 AM, to the south. The parent comet, from which meteor showers derive (as the comets slough off dust and rock), is unknown.

Summer is a fine time to catch the two celestial crowns. Look for a semi-circle of stars, Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, to the northeast of bright Arcturus. Then if you have a good southern horizon and don't live too far north, look directly beneath the Little Milk Dipper of Sagittarius (now well-marked by Jupiter) to find the more ragged semi-circle of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown.

STAR OF THE WEEK: GAMMA CRB (Gamma Coronae Borealis)

To the northeast of Arcturus in Bootes lies one of the most graceful of celestial figures, the semi-circle that makes Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, in mythology the Crown of Ariadne. Set into the center of the curve, like a genuine jewel, is the luminary, third magnitude Alphecca. Immediately to the east of it lies fourth magnitude (3.81) Gamma Coronae Borealis (of no proper name). It is not one star, but two, a double with components in tight orbit about each other. The brighter (Gamma CrB A) is a fourth magnitude class B (on the cool side, B9) subgiant (suggesting the cessation of core hydrogen fusion, but see below); the fainter (Gamma B) is a sixth magnitude (5.60) class A3 hydrogen-fusing dwarf. The two are always less than a second of arc apart and quite difficult to separate through the telescope. The discovery of duplicity in 1826 by F. G. W. Struve is thus quite remarkable. At a distance of 145 light years, they orbit every 92.94 years at an average separation of 32.7 Astronomical Units, roughly the distance between Neptune and the Sun, a relatively high eccentricity of 0.48 taking the physical separation between 49 and 17 AU. The next close approach will take place in 2024.

The orbital plane is tilted almost into the line of sight, just 5 degrees off, so that the stars are not that far from eclipsing one another. Analysis of the orbit via Kepler's Laws yield a combined mass of 4.1 times that of the Sun. The individual masses are not available from the orbital data, so we use the theory of stellar structure. From the spectral classes, the respective temperatures for Gamma A and B are 11,000 and 8800 Kelvin. Distance and apparent brightness (with small corrections for ultraviolet radiation) give respective luminosities of 48 and 9 times solar, radii of 1.9 and 1.3 solar, and masses 2.6 and 1.85 times that of the Sun. The combined "evolutionary mass" is then 4.45 time that of the Sun, not far off that derived from the binary orbit, showing that all the parameters are in pretty good shape. The hotter one is sometimes classed as an A0 or A1 star, but that lowers the mass by only a tenth of a Sun or so. Theory shows that the stars are both quite young, and that Gamma CrB A is not a subgiant at all but a dwarf, although a greater one than its mate. Another point of contention is that Gamma A is listed as a Delta Scuti- type variable with a brightness range of about six percent over a period of 0.7 hours, but it seems too hot for that category. Eventually, in a few hundred million years, Gamma A's internal fire will indeed go out, and Gamma B will watch it turn into a distended giant, but one far enough away that Gamma B should remain unaffected, the pair eventually dying as a double white dwarf.

Do you have a favorite star or one you would like to see highlighted on the Star of the Week? Send a suggestion to Jim Kaler.

Sierra NightSky thanks to Jim Kaler.
Check out his site for more

Astronomy Picture of the Week

total lunar eclipse
Total Lunar Eclipse, Feb. 20, 2008
Credit: Stephen "AstroGeek" LaFlamme

Explanation: This image of the total lunar eclipse was captured with a Meade LPI imager connected to an AstroTech 66mm refractor. About 50 two-second exposures were aligned and stacked with Registax followed by further processing with PhotoShop. Image taken in my backyard observatory located in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Feb. 20, 2008.

Two-headed Bearded Dragon

Two-headed Bearded Dragon

Posted by David Pescovitz, July 24, 2008 2:12 PM | permalink

Zak-n-Wheezie is a two-headed Bearded Dragon lizard that lives on the Wittes family farm in Fowler, California. They (it? he?) just turned one. From McClatchy Newspapers:

When Zak-n-Wheezie were younger, the Wittes laid low to make sure no one searching for an oddity would find their one-in-a-million (actually, statistically speaking, two-in-a-million) pet.

"There were numerous circus-sideshow people looking for me," Barbara Witte says. "But I'm not looking to get them in the sideshow world."

Frank's brother did some research and told the Wittes not to sell Zak-n-Wheezie for anything less than a million dollars — that there were people out there who would pay that much to eat the Wittes' pet.

"There are people who will pay large amounts to eat a two-headed critter. They think it will give them eternal life," says Frank Witte, shaking his head.

Magazine puts diversity in vogue with all-black issue

July 24, 2008, 11:38PM
Magazine puts diversity in vogue with all-black issue

By LESLIE CASIMIR
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

For more than three weeks, local fashion stalwart Tracey Ferguson of Jones magazine has been scouring the city for the taboo-breaking issue of Vogue Italia, which dazzled the international fashion world this month with its issue featuring only black models.

This is unheard of: An unprecedented 100-plus glossy of the fashion and entertainment world's top darker-hued faces, wrapped up in a stunning four-page foldout cover of supermodels Naomi Campbell, Jourdan Dunn, Liya Kebede and Sessilee Lopez.

Ferguson, the editor-in-chief of the fashion and lifestyle quarterly, recently got so desperate for a peek at the international fashion bible that she convinced a friend in New York to scan and e-mail the pages of the magazine to her. She hasn't stopped gushing about the photo spreads.

"They're beautiful — I didn't realize it would be this hard to get a copy," said Ferguson. "I've been to Borders, I've been to Barnes & Noble, to Issues — all sold out. I'm like, 'What?' "

Ferguson should have known better. The issue was the brainchild of Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani, who was inspired by Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and the lack of diversity on the fashion runways.

She decided to do something about it, teaming up with top fashion photographer Steven Meisel, who shot the models. The fashion and the media worlds haven't stopped talking about the July issue ever since.

Houston is no exception. It is a hot commodity, albeit hard to find, driving some fashionistas to eye the fast and fierce bidding world on eBay, where the $17 copy sold late Tuesday for $38.

Some were offering a package of the four different covers for $400.

"I did a lot of research, a lot of calling to find this magazine," said Crystal Smiley, 24, a retail sales associate at the clothing store White House, Black Market in the Galleria. "I called Conde Nast in New York, I contacted Vogue via e-mail, but they didn't have anything to do with the international Vogue."

The Spring resident last week finally landed her copy at Issues, a Montrose magazine store that specializes in foreign language periodicals.

'I dare not touch it ... '

Owner Bang Tran said his shop has been bombarded with callers desperate to get ahold of the magazine. Smiley was placed on a waiting list of some 60 people, and close to two dozen more are still waiting.

Smiley also snatched two more copies at a Borders in The Woodlands for her friends, saying she wanted to get as many copies of it as she could.

"I unwrapped the plastic seal and looked at the pictures just once and put it back in the sleeve," she explained. "I dare not touch it ever again."

Ferguson and Smiley said that they were disappointed that it took a European magazine, not an American one, to deal with the hesitancy the fashion industry has long held to hire black models, claiming that they "don't sell."

Hopefully, that myth has been debunked.

"These things have taken years to (overcome)," said Page Parkes, owner of the Houston and Dallas-based modeling and acting agency. "Italian Vogue is the study guide for all of us in the industry in the U.S., and I think that the American magazines have always copied them, so I'm sure this will help."

Tran said he thinks it will. He has never seen so many black fashionistas walking into his Montrose shop before, plunking down a good chunk of change for the magazine. His distributor, Speed Impex, has imported thousands more of the issue for the U.S. market.

Additional reprinting

Greg Allen, Impex's Midwest regional manager who covers Texas, said he has gotten requests from newsstands and stores that normally don't carry Italian Vogue, including black-themed bookstores. Allen said the American demand has been so great for the Italian issue that Conde Nast in Europe has done an additional reprinting of the magazine due to arrive in the States today.

"We typically don't do reorders on magazines — you just kind of move on to the next month," Allen said. "But this has been unusual. Italian Vogue has consumed my life for the last week and a half."

Burnt popcorn prompts evacuation at UT dorm

Burnt popcorn prompts evacuation at UT dorm

7:47 AM Fri, Jul 25, 2008
Taylor
E-mail

Here's a word to the wise: Never, and we mean NEVER, take a Longhorn to the movies ... unless you want to get hazmat involved.

Why? Burnt popcorn is like kryptonite to the burnt orange.

That's right ... burnt popcorn.

DUN DUN DUUUUUUN!!!!

An entire campus dormitory was evacuated overnight Thursday after residents reported a strong odor wafting from the fourth floor.

They were unable to identify the smell, so emergency officials evacuated all 200 people inside as hazmat crews investigated, KVUE-TV reports.

That's when they discovered the devious -- but delicious -- culprit.

But it gets even better. About 45 people complained of respiratory problems as a result of the popcorn smell.

The Austin Fire Department blamed the high number of patients on what they called a "sympathetic reaction."

That's what we call "hilarious."

"What we found was burnt popcorn. It was popcorn burnt on the fourth floor, and it had a pretty bad odor and it spooked a lot of folks," an AFD spokesperson told KVUE.

Most of the evacuees were summer school students and high school cheerleaders attending camp.

Neil Young Documents Anti-War Tour In Film

Neil Young Documents Anti-War Tour In Film

NEW YORK - Not every musician will make a film that features a fan facing him from a concert audience with two arms raised, middle fingers extended - more than one fan, in fact.Neil Young was singing protest songs on a “Freedom of Speech” tour with David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash at the time. Ignoring that kind of nonverbal speech would contradict the message, wouldn’t it?

It was an easy call. Using the nom de plume Bernard Shakey, Young directs “CSNY: Deja Vu,” a film that uses the tumult surrounding CSNY’s 2006 concert tour as a backdrop for exploring divisions in the country over the Iraq war. It opens in theaters on Friday.

Before the tour, Young had released “Living With War,” the blunt anti-war album where he was backed by a full chorus on songs like “Let’s Impeach the President.” There was little mistaking his intentions; one of the film’s funniest moments shows Young almost physically knocked back when a CNN reporter mentioned the song and asked him, “What’s that song about?”

Young invited journalist Mike Cerre along to speak to members of the audience.

“The interviews we got were more positive than negative,” Young told The Associated Press. “But we tried to represent the people who didn’t come by, trying to equalize the positive and negative.”

Neil YoungIt wasn’t hard to find unhappy fans at a handful of shows, most obviously in Atlanta. Many streamed out, or stayed to offer hand signals. Some had inexplicably expected a greatest-hits show. Young said he was blown away watching families fight, the children wanting to stay while their parents were eager to leave.

He also had narrators read from concert reviews, positive and negative. One critic said, “I don’t want to be told how to think by four aging hippies.” Another said CSNY wasn’t interested in free speech, “just the kind they believe in.”

Plainly, he had struck a nerve. No one likes seeing angry fans, but Young had no interest in backing down.

“Just because I’m famous doesn’t mean that I work for the audience,” he said. “I’m not obligated to do anything. I’m an artist. I will do what I want to do. Whatever the consequences … I certainly hope that it’s a civilized reaction.”

Through Cerre’s contacts, “Deja Vu” tells stories of people band members met along the way. The characters include songwriter Josh Hisle, now a performing musician after two tours of duty with the Marines in Iraq; Gold Star mother and anti-war activist Karen Meredith; and Patrick Murphy, an Iraq veteran now a freshman congressman from Pennsylvania.

The title “Deja Vu” is also a hint that Young seeks to draw connections to CSNY’s activism against the Vietnam War roughly 40 years ago.

Young has resisted playing one of his best-known songs, “Ohio,” about the shooting of anti-Vietnam War demonstrators in Kent State, because he didn’t want to seem like he was exploiting the victims’ memories. The song was dusted off and given new context in the “Freedom of Speech” tour.

When he released his album, Young had said it was a shame that someone older had to write those songs, implicitly criticizing the generation fighting the Iraq war. He’s since been set straight, finding a lot of music addressing the topic was being made; it just hadn’t found an outlet. Young now features a lot of it on his Web site, which keeps a constantly refreshed chart on which songs are being played the most.

Young never wants to do such a tour again, and not just because he hopes for peace.

“It’s too draining and terrifying,” he said. “I was committed to it … and I followed it all the way through to the end, but it’s very dangerous and it’s not fun. Singing those songs every day and meeting the soldiers and meeting people who were crying about their lost loved ones every day? We did that … but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life replaying that.”

The artists received death threats, although this point isn’t raised in the film.

“It’s not very positive and it doesn’t reflect well on society,” he said. “That’s where I drew the line. I just did not want to play that up.”

There’s one touching moment in “Deja Vu” when Young gathers his fellow band members around and thanks them for watching his back. They were all committed to the cause, although Stills was the one displaying the most obvious ambivalence.

Stills has been fundraising for Democratic candidates for years, but being put in a daily situation facing angry fans was tough on him. “Stephen is a wonderful guy,” Young said. “He just doesn’t like to be not liked.”

Young said he believed in everything said and done during the tour, but “I’ve moved on to what’s the solution.” He believes oil fuels many of the world’s conflicts and is helping to finance researchers all over the world hoping to find alternative fuel sources.

He considers the period during when the Iraq war was new and dissent was seen to be non-patriotic to be a blight on the nation’s history. Even if he’s moved on, he doesn’t want moviegoers to forget it.

“I hope that when they leave that they talk about it for a while, and that when they wake up the next day they still have some images from it in their mind,” he said. “The rest is up to them.”

2 Faced Baby Born in India

2 Faced Baby Born in India

A very special girl was born last March in a small suburb of Delhi, India.

She was born with 4 eyes, 2 noses, 2 mouths, 2 ears, and 1 dimple on a shared cheek.

Similar to Lakshmi Tatma, a 2 year-old girl born with four arms and four legs, she is reverred as a reincarnated god by her local villagers, who sing and dance regularly for her.

“I had never seen something like this in my life so naturally I was a little scared when I first saw her,” her father was quoted as saying.

The young girl and her mother are both healthy and the family has no intentions of seeking surgery to correct the deformities.

“The doctor said everything is normal when she was born. So where’s the need to get medical help?” said the child’s father. “She’s fed through one mouth and sucks her thumb with the other. We use whichever mouth is free to feed her

Olympic ticket sale in Beijing starts stampede

By HENRY SANDERSON, Associated Press Writer 54 minutes ago

BEIJING - Thousands of eager fans who had waited for up to two days swarmed sales windows Friday for the final batch of tickets to next month's Olympic Games, knocking people to the ground and bending metal barricades in the chaotic crush.

Witnesses said scuffles broke out at one ticket site as officials opened additional sales windows at the last minute, causing some fans to stampede ahead of others in a bid to buy some of the 250,000 tickets that went on sale in different parts of the host city.

"It was so unfair," said Ji Liqiang, who waited for 28 hours with Wang Zhenqiang, a fellow businessman from eastern Shandong province, for a chance to buy tickets to the diving competition.

"Those who came late but were able to push forward got the tickets," he said.

The two lost their place in line in the scramble and ended up with tickets to the synchronized swimming instead of diving — where China is a gold-medal favorite.

"It was very dangerous. I was afraid," Wang said. "People got hurt around me. They fell and injured their knees and elbows. A barricade was bent out of shape by the crowd."

Zhang Xiaojing, 17, who came from Hebei province with her cousin and three friends, said the line was fairly orderly when she arrived Thursday afternoon. But during Friday's rush, only three of her friends were able to elbow their way close enough to be in a position to buy tickets.

"If I'm going to be disappointed, I'm going to be disappointed. But I'm so tired. I didn't sleep last night," she said.

The official Xinhua News Agency said 30,000 people lined up for tickets, but muggy weather with temperatures above 93 degrees Fahrenheit coupled with the long wait made people impatient. Police immediately took actions to maintain order, including limiting access to some areas, it said.

Some journalists were escorted away after going into the off-limit areas, Xinhua said. Hong Kong television showed several journalists pushing back and forth with police.

Footage from Hong Kong Cable TV showed a policeman putting his arm around the neck of a Hong Kong Cable TV reporter and pulling him to the ground. The reporter said he was assaulted after his crew refused to leave a media zone, Cable TV reported. They were seen surrounded by dozens of police.

A spokeswoman for Hong Kong Cable TV said it was "unacceptable" for Chinese authorities to treat the media that way.

"We hope the authorities will live up to their earlier promise to allow full freedom of the press during the Olympic Games," said Shum Siu-wah.

Despite the problems, an Olympic official said the start of the sale went well.

"There were so many people who wanted tickets so we decided to open more ticket windows. ... In general, so far the ticket sale has gone smoothly," said Sun Weide, spokesman for Beijing's Olympic organizing committee.

At Wukesong in the western part of Beijing, tens of thousands of people were lined up to buy tickets for the popular basketball competition. About 20,000 basketball tickets were expected to go on sale.

In addition to the tickets for Olympic events in Beijing, another 570,000 tickets are on sale for soccer matches in co-host cities: Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang and Qinhuangdao.

All told, 6.8 million Olympic tickets have been available for domestic and foreign sales. The Olympics start Aug. 8.

Though previous Olympic Games have had problems filling seats for less popular events, venues in Beijing are expected to be filled with enthusiastic fans. Some tickets were given away to school groups and government work units in an effort to present packed stadiums to television viewers around the world.

In November, organizers were embarrassed when the computer system crashed, forcing organizers to sack the Olympic ticketing chief and revert to a lottery system to sell tickets.

Organizers have said they are taking precautions against fake tickets and black market scalping, both of which are common in China. Buyers on Friday were limited to two tickets per person to discourage scalpers.

Xinhua said Thursday that Beijing police have detained 60 suspects for scalping Olympic tickets in the past two months, citing a police spokesman. Those found selling tickets on the black market can face 10 to 15 days in detention, Xinhua said.

Still, Olympic tickets can easily be found online, though few sellers openly advertise the resale price. In sports that are unpopular in China, like baseball, 50 yuan ($7.30) tickets were offered at 1000 yuan ($150). Other tickets were being resold for 100 times the face value, Xinhua said.

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AP Photo: Beijing police strain to keep the crowd behind a fence while they wait to buy...

Astronaut Says Aliens Are Real

Astronaut Says Aliens Are Real

Aliens are real and have made contact with us several times according to Apollo 14 astronaut Dr Edgar Mitchell....

...as discovered by Nick Margerrison and The Night Before Team.

Dr Ed Mitchell, was the 6th man to land on the moon. He came on air with Nick Margerrison and told us that UFOs definatly exist, he has been in on it all, and that they are in contact with our government. He even made Nick change his opinions on all the UFO/Conspiracy stuff COMPLETELY...no mean feat.

So Producer Alex contacted NASA to confirm Dr. Mitchell's story, this was their reply:

"Dear Alex,
NASA does not track UFOs.
NASA is not involved in any sort of cover up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe.
Dr Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinion on this issue.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment."

Our story made the Daily Mail check it out HERE

If you dont believe us....you can hear audio clips from the show below. So there :

PLUS check out Nick Pope's reaction who is ex MOD....

....and so we called NASA to tell them....

First man in the world to give birth shows off his new baby girl

Pictured: First man in the world to give birth shows off his new baby girl

By Tom Kelly
Last updated at 2:06 PM on 24th July 2008

Thomas Beatie says he is just like any other normal father.

But he is about as far as you could be from typical. He claims to have given birth to the child.

Although born a woman, Beatie had his breasts removed and lives outwardly as a man after changing his gender to male.

The 34-year-old says he retained his female sex organs because he intended to have children one day.

Thomas Beatie, Nancy Beatie and Susan Juliette Beatie pose for their picture. Beatie said that his pregnancy was an 'experience of a lifetime'

He conceived with sperm from a donor and was inseminated at home by his 45-year-old wife Nancy, using a do-it-yourself kit.

Despite opposition from family, friends and the medical profession he continued with the controversial pregnancy and says that on June 29 he delivered Susan Juliette.

Yesterday Beatie, from Bend, in Oregon, spoke for the first time about the 40-hour labour, describing it as the 'experience of a lifetime'.

He said: 'It was simply amazing and beautiful and is a moment I will cherish for the rest of my life.

'Everyone thought I was going to have a caesarean but I always knew I wanted a natural birth and I had one.

'As she was being born the midwife said she had this mass of dark hair like me.

'I could hear her words but I needed to see her for myself. And then she came out and my eyes just filled with tears. She was so beautiful and perfect in every way. I was overwhelmed with love and wonder and I couldn't keep my eyes off her. I still can't today.'

Proud father Thomas holds his young baby aloft. He said that can't wait to bake cupcakes with his daughter, Nancy

He also claimed that his daughter is fed naturally by his wife who has begun to produce milk after being stimulated by the suckling baby.

He said: 'Most people assumed that our baby would not be breast-fed but we are proud to announce that she is.

'Nancy breast-feeds her every two to three hours. I do everything but breast-feed her.'

Beatie, who was born in Hawaii as Tracy Lagondino, had a partial sex change operation ten years ago and married soon after.

He told the News of the World: 'We see ourselves as a traditional family - husband, wife and child. Nancy and I have strong family values and will raise Susan with integrity, compassion and respect for all people.

'Like any proud dad I look forward to being a huge part of my daughter's life. I can't wait to watch her and Nancy bake cookies and cupcakes together.'

New white whale spotted

By Alison Feeney-Hart BBC News, Sydney

Migaloo has become something of a celebrity

A new white humpback has been sighted off Byron Bay on the east coast of Australia.

The newcomer, which was filmed by a television news helicopter, has excited marine scientists who think it may be related to Migaloo - to date, the only known all-white humpback whale.

Migaloo is somewhat of a celebrity down under. Why? "Because as far as we know, he is globally unique," said Professor Peter Harrison from the Whale Research Centre, Southern Cross University.

It now seems that Migaloo, (whose Aboriginal name means "white fellow") might have competition.

Although predominantly white, the new whale does have some black markings near its head and tail. So who is the newcomer?

A white calf was spotted with a normal humpback mother in Byron Bay two years ago. Experts say the new whale could be the offspring of Migaloo but further tests need to be carried out.

A record number of humpbacks have been spotted off the Australian coast this year on their annual migration north to their breeding grounds.

One thing scientists do agree on is that this second white whale has never been seen in these waters before.

A Tale of Two Doctors (Everybody Wants to Rule The World)

posted by Aaron Muszalski on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

guest post by Aaron Muszalski

With the interwebs still abuzz from last week’s debut of Joss Whedon’s independently-produced musical miniseries, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, reports have surfaced of a budding rivalry in the (evidently crowded) world of singing super-geniuses.

Dr. Phineas Waldolf Steel, a musical mad scientist with a secret laboratory in Santa Clarita, California, is asserting a prior claim on the title of “future World Emperor.” An artist, philosopher and composer, Dr. Steel has been performing in labcoat and goggles since 1999 as part of his lifelong goal of “manifesting as much creativity in the world [and] utilizing his multi-talented mind to build a Utopian Playland.”

On his fan club site, Toy Soldiers Unite, Dr. Steel has issued a directive to his followers instructing them to post Dr. Steel propaganda - a term he proudly embraces - wherever Dr. Horrible is mentioned, and to point out that their Doctor is the one true original. However, upon closer examination, the two doctors are actually quite distinct from one another, despite their outward similarities.

For example, while both aspire to usher in a New World Order of their own devising, Dr. Horrible seems to have taken a more traditional route to super-villainy, performing a variety of criminal acts in the hopes of securing a place in an elite crime syndicate. (In this case, the Evil League of Evil.) In contrast, Dr. Steel’s goal is the creation of a “Utopian Playland” in which the people of the Earth are required to do nothing but that which makes them happy. To achieve these ends, Dr. Steel uses musical performance, puppets, and a line of modified toys. Whereas, to achieve his ends, Dr. Horrible uses his Wonderflonium-powered Freeze Ray.

Despite his claim that the “status is NOT quo,” Dr. Horrible’s musical tastes are also fairly traditional, featuring songs that would hardly seem out-of-place in any of the currently popular contemporary Broadway musicals. Dr. Steel, on the other hand, has chosen to spread his message via a more dance-oriented style: funky, industrial, and heavily sample-laden. Consequently, Dr. Steel’s music would make a better soundtrack for leading an army of giant robots into battle, while Dr. Horrible’s songs are more instantly memorable, and easier to sing along to.

Dr. Steel is also a supporter of organized labor (Member, Mad Scientists Union Local 42) while Dr. Horrible, insofar as can be determined from his actions thus far, appears to be a Libertarian.

Given these differences, and in the hopes of averting a potentially dangerous feud between these two misunderstood visionaries, Laughing Squid would like to humbly suggest that - at least for the time being - the world is big enough for two spuriously-degreed, mentally-unhinged masters of scientific mayhem.

Would-be burglar breaks neck in window; body hangs for days

By WILLIAM BENDER
Philadelphia Daily News

benderw@phillynews.com 215-854-5255

Charles Ancrum did not succeed in breaking into a Delaware County business off I-95 over the weekend; he didn't make it out alive, either.

Police found the 50-year-old Phoenixville resident yesterday morning hanging by his neck from the garage window of a Chester Township general-contracting company.

Township Police Chief Tim Wilson said that whoever was calling Ancrum's cell phone obviously hadn't seen him at least in a couple of days, because the larvae and flies indicated that his body had been rotting in the sun over the weekend.

Wilson said that Ancrum apparently had tried to break into the building on Concord Road - possibly to steal scrap metal - by standing on a sawhorse and bashing in a small window. He said Ancrum may have poked his head into the narrow opening to look for the latch to the door.

"What happened was he slipped off the horse and snapped his neck, and he was there for about two days," Wilson said. "It was a freak accident."

An employee called police at 6:30 a.m. yesterday when he entered the building through the front door, walked into the garage and saw a man's head lodged in the window. Ancrum's body was suspended above the ground outside, police said, and the fire department had to widen the 6-inch window opening to get him down.

"That's no way to start a Monday off," Wilson said of the employee who found the body. "He came in there and looked and just took off running. [He] saw a face in the glass window. He was just hanging."

An autopsy performed yesterday determined that the cause of Ancrum's accidental death was asphyxiation and "neck compression/entrapment," according to Delaware County Medical Examiner Fredric Hellman.

Wilson said that Ancrum wasn't known to local police, but that he may have been staying at the nearby Highland Motel.

No one answered the door yesterday afternoon at MTGC, the letters on the front of the building where Ancrum was found. The garage door around the side cannot be seen from the street, which is why the Chester County resident's body wasn't discovered until yesterday. A sawhorse sat near the garage door.

Ancrum's motives may never be known, but as far as police are concerned the case ended with Hellman's finding that the death was an accident.

"This is closed," Wilson said.

Newspaper misspells its own name on front page

No media organisation can claim to be immune from spelling mistakes, but a local paper in the United States may have set a new standard for most glaring typo.

By Matthew Moore
Last Updated: 11:15AM BST 24 Jul 2008

This Monday readers of New Hampshire’s Valley News were surprised to see the paper's name spelled "Valley Newss" on the front page masthead.

The following day the newspaper, which covers the Upper Valley area straddling New Hampshire and Vermont, published an “Editor’s Note” acknowledging the error.

“Readers may have noticed that the Valley News misspelled its own name on yesterday’s front page,” it read.

“Given that we routinely call on other institutions to hold themselves accountable for the mistakes, let us say for the record: We sure feel silly.”

The misspelling, which is still visible in the archive section of the newspaper’s website , has already been touted as favourite for typo of the year by the Regret the Error blog, which monitors media mistakes

Fossils date Dry Valleys' origin

By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News

Exquisite detail has been preserved in the fossils

Tiny fossils have helped refine the timing of the climate shift that gave rise to Antarctica's remarkable Dry Valleys, a landscape akin to Mars.

The famously ice-free terrain enjoyed more benign, tundra-like conditions 14 million years ago - but then flipped to the intensely cold setting seen today.

Scientists tell a Royal Society journal that ancient lake-living shrimp-like creatures can pinpoint the big switch.

The ostracods would not have coped with a harsh, dry environment, they say.

Dr Adam Lewis, from North Dakota State University, US, explained: "Our dating says the lake existed 14 million years ago, and within about 250,000 years of that lake existing and holding those ostracods, all the glaciers in the surrounding area stopped melting and they become cold-based and began to evaporate.

"So after about 13.8 million years ago, there's no water - it's bone dry, dry-frozen," he told BBC News.

Antarctica's Dry Valleys, with their barren gravel-strewn floors, are said to be the closest place on Earth to Mars.

Valley floors are littered with the mummified corpses of dead animals

The air that falls into the region from the continent's elevated interior has extremely low humidity. There is so little precipitation in the valleys that they are technically regarded as deserts.

Animals such as seals which wander into this landscape and get lost will die and mummify.

The team found a range of fossils in sediments on the slopes of Mount Boreas, on the edge of McKelvey Valley. These include mosses, diatoms and beetles. But it is the 1mm-long ostracods which catch the eye.

They are exquisitely well preserved, with their soft tissues visible in three dimensions.

Dr Mark Williams, from the University of Leicester, UK, said: "We've got the legs and the mouth parts, and the reproductive organs; and we can even see micron-scale hairs on the legs.

"This is a first of its kind from the Antarctic; it's unusual in the fossil record in general - it's special.

"Notwithstanding the significance of the fossil preservation, the presence of lake ostracods at this latitude, 77 degrees South, is also of great note. With modern ostracod distribution, the most southerly ones are at about 60 degrees South."

The team says the fossils therefore represent a precise marker, indicating the switch from conditions which one might see in Northern Canada and Iceland today, where summer warmth brings a melt, liquid water and a flourish of life - to the more severe, arid conditions we recognise in the Antarctic today.

"This also helps us understand the whole evolution of Earth's climate system because you've got this huge climate jump that takes place about 14 million years ago when the oceans reorganise, Antarctica freezes over - a whole host of things change right at that point.

"What we're doing with these ostracods is to say: 'that's it, that's the point'."

The fossil research is detailed in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Man Caught Using Impersonator to Divorce Wife

Man Caught Using Impersonator to Divorce Wife

An Indian man took a new approach to the painful process of divorce recently.

Sanjib Saha decided it would be best if he hired an impersonator to act as his wife during divorce procedures in the eastern city of Kolkata.

Both Sanjib and his fake wife said they sought a mutual divorce which the court granted.

Sanjib’s real wife found out later, when she was asked to leave their home.

She immediately appealed to a higher court charging her husband with cheating on her and faking their divorce. The court suspended the fake divorce leaving both Sanjib and his wife married once more.

“The case exposed the legal loopholes in our system,” Kaushik Chanda, lawyer of Saha’s real wife, said.

Sanjib Saha finds himself in a tough situation. If he now tries to get the divorce legally, the judge is likely to be very hard on him and rule in his wife’s favor. If he doesn’t get the divorce he has to live and stay with his wife, who he just tried to divorce with an impersonator.

I would definitely not want to be in Sanjib’s shoes…

Russian Bears Trap Geology Survey Crew

23 July 2008By Alexei DovbyshVLADIVOSTOK, Primorye Region -- At least 30 hungry bears have trapped a group of geologists at their remote survey site in the Far East after killing two of their co-workers last week, emergency officials said Tuesday.

The team of geologists on the seismically active Kamchatka Peninsula refused to leave their camp after the bears showed up, a press spokesman for the Kamchatka branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry said.

"In the interests of safety, they didn't come out to work -- the people are scared by the invasion of bears," the spokesman said.

A bear killed two geologists at the work site on Friday, officials said.

Officials on Kamchatka said that this year was remarkable for either too many bears or not enough fish.

"Either way, there is not enough food," the spokesman said.

Rampant fish poaching in the tundra sends hungry bears, attracted to the garbage humans leave behind, into populated centers every year.

Officials said a helicopter ferrying officials and hunters could not fly in bad weather, but an all-terrain vehicle was on its way to the camp, where it would await government approval to shoot the bears.

Andy Hayward - Puppet Reel

Andy's puppetry demo is good, clean fun for the whole family! Grab some popcorn and cozy up.

Zombie puppets sing songs of love

Matt Ficner Productions www.mfproductions.ca

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Sculptor, artist, instructor, painter, designer, performer, inventor, musician, puppet master, Reiki master, digital visualist, photographer... and many other titles follow Matt's name.

Some of Matt's creative endeavours have seen him create and perform puppet characters for film, television and stage for industry giants Jim Henson Associates, Warner Brothers, Disney and the BBC.

Matt has also designed characters and creature FX for numerous stage and TV projects, designed logos and icons for industry, recorded his own music CDs, hunted ghosts, traveled extensively and met some of the most magical and exciting individuals.

Matt's ingenuity, creativity and curiosity is continuously evolving and he has created many award winning, international projects.

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Bert & Ernie tries Gangsta-Rap

I was a bit bored last week, so I edited some old Bert & Ernie episodes to the sound of M.O.P.'s Ante Up.

Tip of the Hat to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21OH0wlkfbc

How not to do an American accent

Barbara Berkery gives the BBC's Stephen Robb an American accent primer

Everyone can do an American accent... at least everyone thinks they can. But how many would pass muster with a Hollywood studio? The BBC's Stephen Robb took a lesson from one of the movie industry's top accent coaches.

Any actor or actress hoping to convince in a foreign accent must have three words in the back of their mind at all times.

They won't be phrases like "shape of mouth", "position of tongue" or "placement of voice" - although all of these will be fundamental to learning and adopting an accent.

The three words haunting the performer, driving hour after hour of dialect practice, are "Dick", "Van" and "Dyke".

NOW LET'S HEAR YOURS Thanks to all readers who phoned or sent in examples of their American accents. A selection will be featured on the Magazine on Tuesday

The American's "strike a light, guv'nor" Cockney caricature in Mary Poppins is widely regarded as delivering the worst film accent of all time. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, it was not.

And that's up against competition from Sean Connery playing a Spaniard, an Irishman and a Russian at stages of his career.

British dialect coach Barbara Berkery admits that a lot of actors seeking her tutelage plead at the outset: "I don't want to sound like Dick Van Dyke."

Her glittering cast of former students include Gwyneth Paltrow, whom she trained for Emma and Shakespeare in Love, and Renee Zellweger for Bridget Jones's Diary and Miss Potter.

Half-hour challenge

Paltrow won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love and Zellweger was nominated as Bridget Jones, but probably the greater tributes to their English accents were the nominations from an obviously impressed British Academy - they sounded the part.

Berkery has also coached Brad Pitt (Seven Years in Tibet), Jim Carrey (A Christmas Carol, due out next year) and Geoffrey Rush (Pirates of the Caribbean), and is currently working with Jake Gyllenhaal on his English accent for Prince of Persia.

You must play a character who has an accent, but you must never play an accent Barbara Berkery

In other words, or for words in another accent anyway, London-based Berkery has become the English dialect coach Hollywood turns to. "It's a nice position to be in," she says.

Usually conducting her training for several weeks in the run-up to a production, and then throughout the shoot, Berkery has consistently achieved convincing results with hugely-dedicated and highly-talented actors; what she can do with me in half an hour is a different challenge altogether.

Exposure to US films and television means most people probably believe they can affect a passable American accent - myself included.

But Berkery explains that "mimicry is not the same as doing accents - if somebody is just mimicking, I think we do feel it isn't quite truthful."

Dick Van Dyke's accent in Mary Poppins is one of the worst ever

Her work involves building the accent authentically by teaching the real mouth shapes and tongue positions involved - for a general American accent, she tells me, that means a wide mouth and the tongue higher up in the mouth.

She also tells me to smile, in order to place the voice towards my nasal resonator - one of the three voice resonators along with the facial and throat resonators. Berkery describes learning to do an accent as having "a mask on the face that fits perfectly".

With my lifted tongue, wide mouth, attempted smile, and the concentration involved in maintaining these as we start voice exercises, my mask resembles something like Jack Nicholson's The Joker with a lobotomised, vacant look in the eyes. I feel certain that a cinema audience would find it distracting.

Berkery takes me through some of the major vowel changes from standard English to general American - their short "ah" in bath and sample, the "aw" in cloth and Boston - and the sound that comes out of my mouth is unrecognisable to me.

Julia Roberts in Mary Reilly ran Van Dyke close

It is a long way from my own south-east England accent, but not much nearer my trusted American impression. It does sound vaguely American, but like an over-the-top, slightly camp game show host with an occasional lisp - not what I had been aiming for at all.

And I find the process very unnerving. "The voice is the soul and you are moving it," says Berkery.

"People do find it very frightening - it's like being off-balance."

As we continue, moving from vowel exercises to working on consonant changes, Berkery frequently offers comments like "Make it less" and "Don't do as much".

TRY THIS AT HOME Follow these instructions to start learning an American accent: Widen your mouth, as you would making the 'ee' sound in weed Smile, to place the voice towards your nasal resonator Position your tongue further up in the mouth, rather than against the ridge behind the top teeth Read out loud the following: Round the rugged rock, the ragged rascal ran. Saying 'l' as you do the final letters in bell, well and level, read the following: Lucky Lily liked to live in Louisiana. Barbara Berkery's advice: "Let yourself go, and have fun."

Not only is my performance dreadful, there is clearly much too much of it; my overacting makes Dick Van Dyke's infamous turn look like a masterclass of subtlety and technique.

"You mustn't play an accent," Berkery says. "You must play a character who has an accent, but you must never play an accent."

Berkery and her students start with nothing and build an accent from its essential parts.My brief lesson hints at the phenomenal amount of work involved in reaching a point where that accent convinces on a giant screen, in surround sound and over a two-hour running time.

While Berkery suggests most actors "can have a good stab at the accent if you have enough time", she stresses that those that "get it really perfect" do so through exceptional dedication.

She had two months working with Zellweger before filming started on Bridget Jones's Diary, comprising lessons in the morning followed by afternoons out together in London when the actress was forced to keep up her accent.

Zellweger later worked undercover in a publishing house using her English accent, and also maintained it on set for the entirety of the film's shoot.

"Some people never, ever heard her own accent until we finished the film," says Berkery.

Master of the House: Hugh Laurie is acclaimed as an American

"It was a testament to her talent and hard work. It was a complete transformation; she is a girl with a very strong Texan accent and she did completely transform herself."

An authentic accent will be "second-nature" to an actor, Berkery says, likening it to fluency in a foreign language where a person doesn't have to think about the process of speaking.

"You don't want the audience to notice," she adds. "You don't really want people to think, 'That's a good accent,' because if you think that you are not thinking about the character."

On those terms, maybe my accent wasn't such a flop after all - nobody's ever going to be distracted thinking how good it was

See video @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7512870.stm