Frozen Piss

"The information disclosed by Edward Snowden has been extremely important in allowing Congress and the American people to understand the degree to which the NSA has abused its authority and violated our constitutional rights. On the other hand, there is no debate that Mr. Snowden violated an oath and committed a crime. "In my view the interests of justice would be best served if our government granted him some form of clemency or a plea agreement that would spare him a long prison sentence or permanent exile from the country whose freedoms he cared enough about to risk his own freedom." Senator Bernie Sanders

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I'm not feeling super motivated today but a couple of things have caught my eye.

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Hudgins, an engineer, sent along a link to the following video.

This company is promoting the technology process that I have been talking about. You remember, Solar/electric/desert/ocean=Results in clean water+fuel+removes carbon from air etc. He says "This is where our military budget should be spent."



And sends along this picture.

If Andromeda were brighter, this would be how it would look in our night sky.

Would be very cool but like everything else, one would probably get quickly used to it.

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Staying with the Astronomy theme, Ted sends this along, well, yesterday...

This is like breaking news for me: Just hours ago, a solar flare let loose from the sun and was captured on a video which is posted on Youtube and www.Earthsky.org . This is the first solar X Flare of the year 2014, and will probably produce some awesome Northern Lights tonight. Wish I could photograph those...

Running outside with my trusty Canon SX240hs with long zoom capacity and a handy Eclipse Viewer black plastic, I was able to see it live! Picture is grainy due to the Digital zoom of 80x instead of the 20x Optical zoom.

Must be huge in comparison to our earth. Almost looks like the Hawaiian Island chain.

This is exciting to me, and hope you enjoy the view, too.

Aloha,

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The accent mark sent along the weird stuff that you never knew could freeze article from HuffPo.

Hudg replied with this choice tidbit:

I have a experience with cold that caught me unawares at the time.....
When I worked for Toyota the Japan staff decided that we were going to go to Bimidji, Minnesota in early February 1979 to test various vehicles to see how well suited they were for the climate.  Corollas, etc. We stayed in an 50's era Motel where the cars could park right outside your room door.
The first test was done the morning after our arrival.
The Japan staff gleefully awoke us young engineers at 4:15 am with cry's of "It's -42 degrees, hurry before it warms up".
The test was to put on basic clothes, (No huge stuff, just normal medium coat etc.) go get in our car, record the time and interior temp, start it, turn on the heat, wait until you are comfortable, and mark the four pages of test paperwork accordingly.  (The Japan staff loved subjective ratings. "How happy were you to get warm in your car?" On a scale of one to ten of course.)
I finished and got out of my car and went to go back in my room but the door was frozen shut and I had to take a leak.  So I walked down to the end of concrete walk way in front of the rooms and whipped it out and proceeded to wiz.
This action was accompanied by a quite loud cracking and popping of which I had no clue what the cause might be.  (Remember it was dark)
I finished and went back to free my door and go back to bed.  I was successful.
In the morning I went down the same concrete bit and peered out at the scenery, (we had arrived after dark) then happened to look down and there on the snow were a bunch of yellow pellets about 3/8-1/2 inch long and about 1/8 in diameter covering an area about 3 feet around.  It did not dawn on me the significance of these pellets.
I was shortly joined by the head of the Japan staff (An old hand at these cold tests) and he also looked down.
And then he said to me:  "Ah, someone wee-wee outside last night. Rucky it not freeze before out of dick."
And that is how I know that pee will freeze before it hits the ground at 4 in the morning in Bimidji, Minnesota.

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Not to get too political but you want to know what happens when you put the bible bangers in charge? We get f*cked up situations like this. As the headline from Altenet reads, Pregnant, Brain-Dead Woman Forced to Stay on Life Support to Incubate Fetus -Texas law requires that a pregnant woman be kept alive, regardless of the condition of the baby or her family’s wishes.

  

A brain-dead woman is being kept on life support against hers and her family’s wishes so her body can incubate her unborn baby, Huffington Post reported.
33-year-old Marlise Munoz from Fort Worth, Texas was 14 weeks pregnant when she died of a suspected pulmonary embolism, a blood clot to the lungs, the week after Thanksgiving.
Her husband, Erick, found Marlise at their home and performed CPR before she was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth.  Electric shocks and drugs started her heart and it continued to beat with mechanical support, but her brain waves were completely flat, with no hope of ever recovering.
As her family planned to say their goodbyes to honor Marlise’s wishes not be kept on life support, they were stunned when a doctor told them the hospital would not comply with the directions, NY Times reported.
The hospital plans on keeping Marlise on life support until her baby is delivered based on an arbitrary law of the Texas Advance Directives Act which states that, “a person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment under this subchapter from a pregnant patient.”
Hospital spokesperson J.R. Labbe said he believed the hospital's hands are tied: "We can't withdraw treatment from a pregnant person as the law states,” he told Dallas Culture Map.
This is despite the fact that family members including her husband have publicly stated they do not wish to keep her on life support and have expressed concerned about the condition of the baby.
“That poor foetus had the same lack of oxygen, the same electric shocks, the same chemicals that got her heart going again. For all we know, it’s in the same condition that Marlise is in,” father Ernest Machado, told Dallas News. 

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Great to see Chris Christie throw all of his peeps under the bus in the Bridge Scandal. Remember the scene in the Godfather when Tom Hagen gives Frankie Pants the loyalty lecture and he ends up dead in the bathtub? Omerta. Lets see if the capos crack...