14. Obama as the standard of divine law
For millennia, theologians have struggled with the concept of sin. Usually, though, the question focused on how one finds redemption from sin, or what constitutes a sin, not who gets to decide what a sin is. It seemed a given that sin, by its very nature, is a transgression against God’s values. What those values are is subject to debate, of course, but the debate is always in the context of divine law and divine will.
Except to Barack Obama. When asked to define “sin,” he stated that sin is “being out of alignment with my values,” whatever those are. So take that, St. Augustine!
13. Announcing the killing of Osama bin Laden
Perhaps the only time the nation has truly been united under President Obama was when he delivered the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed. And why let a great opportunity for self-aggrandizement go wasted?
Just as he had felt compelled to include himself in the report of the Navy snipers who killed the Somali pirates who had hijacked an American tanker in 2009, telling us that he had heroically “given the order” to shoot, in his relatively brief announcement about the Bin Laden killing Obama referenced himself fifteen times, speaking at length of his minimal role: “I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda… I was briefed on a possible lead… I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden… I determined that we had enough intelligence…and authorized an operation.”
Oddly, never once during this speech did he mention the Navy SEALs who actually carried out the operation. But that was a minor detail.
The performance of "Daiku", "The Ninth", Beethoven's 9th Symphony with 10000 (amateur) chorus singers is a Japanese highlight every year in the end of December. Here is the last movement, recorded at the 2011 concert in Osaka, this year dedicated especially to the memory of the victims of the desastrous tsunami in March. ...
Jarrod Radnich, nationally noted composer and pianist of "Virtuosic Piano Solo Series" personally instructed Miss South Dakota, Anna Simpson, on one of his piano compositions. The composition, Pirates of the Caribbean, was then performed by Simpson at the Miss America Pageant. He did the training with a distance of thousands of miles between them!
This 747 is sitting in a boneyard in Mojave, CA waiting to be dismantled and recycled at the end of its useful life. On May 23rd, 2012 the area experienced extreme winds of 70+ miles per hour and reports of gusts up to 100 near the pass due to a low pressure zone. Without the weight of its engines and with its landing flaps deployed, the slightly tail heavy 747 tries to take to the skies one last time. The next day the plane was found to have also rotated about 45 degrees from its original position. The same wind storm damaged many rooftops, cut power and sent huge clouds of sand and dust billowing into the sky. Mojave will occasionally experience this type of wind storm due to geography. --Mike
...
Rolling in the Deep written by Paul Epworth and Adele
Instrumental arrangement produced by Steven Sharp Nelson, Al van der Beek
Arrangement written by Steven Sharp Nelson, Al van der Beek & Jon Schmidt
Piano: Jon Schmidt
Acoustic/Electric Cellos: Steven Sharp Nelson
Recorded, mixed & mastered by Al van der Beek at TPG Studios
Video Produced by Paul Anderson, Tel Stewart, and Shaye Scott
In this arrangement we borrowed a melody from Gustav Holst's "Jupiter" Suite from "The Planets" -- op. 32 -- be sure to listen to his original composition -- it's amazing! The melody we used comes in about half-way through the piece.
O Fortuna
velut luna
statu variabilis,
semper crescis
aut decrescis;
vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat
et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem,
egestatem,
potestatem
dissolvit ut glaciem.
Sors immanis
et inanis,
rota tu volubilis,
status malus,
vana salus
semper dissolubilis,
obumbrata
et velata
michi quoque niteris;
nunc per ludum
dorsum nudum
fero tui sceleris.
Sors salutis
et virtutis
michi nunc contraria,
est affectus
et defectus
semper in angaria.
Hac in hora
sine mora
corde pulsum tangite;
quod per sortem
sternit fortem,
mecum omnes plangite!
O Fortune,
just like the moon
thou art variable,
always dost thou
wax and wane.
Detestable life,
first dost thou mistreat us,
and then, whimsically,
thou heedest our desires.
As the sun melts the ice,
so dost thou dissolve
both poverty and power.
Monstrous
and empty fate,
thou, turning wheel,
art mean,
voiding
good health at thy will.
Veiled
in obscurity,
thou dost attack
me also.
To thy cruel pleasure
I bare my back.
Thou dost withdraw
my health and virtue;
thou dost threaten
my emotion
and weakness
with torture.
At this hour,
therefore, let us
pluck the strings without
delay.
Let us mourn together,
for fate crushes the brave.
... These are two gigantic solid state musical Tesla Coils. A Tesla Coil is a special type of transformer invented by Nikola Tesla that is able to generating extremely large voltages using a phenomenon known as electrical resonance. Each coil in this video is capable of generating a 13 foot spark. This equates to about 500,000 volts of electricity.
The primary drive system for the coils consists of high power semiconductors arranged into an H-Bridge switching configuration. During a spark event, the coil is pulsed on for a few hundred millionths of a second. During this short time, thousands of amps circulate within the primary tank circuit and the energy is coupled into the secondary resonator through magnetism.
So what appears to be a continuous burst of sparks is actually a specific number of sparks generated per second. By modulating the number of sparks that emit from the coil each second, different tones can be produced by the coils. ...
Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae,
vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevae,
ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.
Eia, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos
misericordes oculos ad nos converte;
et Iesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,
nobis post hoc exsilium ostende.
O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve;
to thee do we send up our sighs,
mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate,
thine eyes of mercy toward us;
and after this our exile,
show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
... Hurtling through the air at 85 miles an hour, daredevil adventurer Jeb Corliss becomes the first man to fly through a waterfall wearing a wingsuit. Flying through an exit point called 'The Ultimate' in the mountainous region of Lauterbrunnen in the Swiss Alps, 35-year old Jeb flies within five feet of the 2000 foot sheer cliff wall. Falling three feet for every one foot he moves forward, Jeb's precision flight enables him to travel through the two foot wide falls despite the turbulence hitting the water causes him. One year in the planning, Jeb practiced the flight eight times before nailing it on the ninth attempt. ...
Annual supply ship offload at McMurdo Station Antarctica, 2012.
Due to an unusually warm winter last year, the floating ice pier that is normally used to offload cargo melted badly this summer, making it unusable. A temporary floating pier had to be installed by the U.S. Army Transportation Corps.
Dies irae, dies illa
solvet saeclum in favilla:
teste David cum Sibylla.
Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!
Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulcra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.
Mors stupebit et natura,
cum resurget creatura,
judicanti responsura.
Liber scriptus proferetur,
in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus judicetur.
Judex ergo cum sedebit,
quidquid latet apparebit:
nil inultum remanebit.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus,
cum vix justus sit securus?
Rex tremendae majestatis,
qui salvandos salvas gratis,
salva me fons pietatis.
Recordare, Jesu pie,
quod sum causa tuae viae:
ne me perdas illa die.
Quaerens me, sedisti lassus:
redemisti Crucem passus:
tantus labor non sit cassus.
Juste judex ultionis,
donum fac remissionis
ante diem rationis.
Ingemisco, tamquam reus:
culpa rubet vultus meus:
supplicanti parce, Deus.
Qui Mariam absolvisti,
et latronem exaudisti,
mihi quoque spem dedisti.
Preces meae non sunt dignae:
sed tu bonus fac benigne,
ne perenni cremer igne.
Inter oves locum praesta,
et ab haedis me sequestra,
statuens in parte dextra.
Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis:
voca me cum benedictis.
Oro supplex et acclinis,
cor contritum quasi cinis:
gere curam mei finis.
Lacrimosa dies illa,
qua resurget ex favilla
judicandus homo reus.
Huic ergo parce, Deus:
pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem. Amen.
This visualization shows ocean surface currents around the world during the period from June 2005 through [December] 2007. The visualization does not include a narration or annotations; the goal was to use ocean flow data to create a simple, visceral experience.
This visualization was produced using NASA/JPL's computational model called Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II or ECCO2.. ECCO2 is high resolution model of the global ocean and sea-ice. ECCO2 attempts to model the oceans and sea ice to increasingly accurate resolutions that begin to resolve ocean eddies and other narrow-current systems which transport heat and carbon in the oceans.The ECCO2 model simulates ocean flows at all depths, but only surface flows are used in this visualization. The dark patterns under the ocean represent the undersea bathymetry. Topographic land exaggeration is 20x and bathymetric exaggeration is 40x.
credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
source: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?3827
... Even if Jezebel's editor were not terminally mathematically challenged (and this is putting the case very mildly) the basic premises that underlie the thrust (so to speak) of her utero-call-to-arms are patently absurd.Go read the whole humorous thing here.
After listing out a litany of drugstore and prescription items ranging from cranberry juice to toilet paper our heroine tacks the annual expense for a pair of ovaries at between $2,663.02 and $4,228.02.
Taking this decidedly amateurish analysis at face value, by implication this puts the present value of my vagina's ten-year discounted cash flow at between -$17,949.96 and -$28,498.77, or about on par with a Chevy Volt.
With the 10 year treasury yielding 2.05%2 and an implied equity risk premium hovering around 5.85%3 I use a 7.90% discount rate for my vagina here. This is befitting my highly conservative valuation approach as one could easily make the case that cost of capital for a vagina far from the end of its useful life is extremely low given the exceedingly strong borrowing power one commands on the highly liquid (as it were) global vagina market.
Certainly, the beta for long maturity AAA, AA, or A rated vagina vis-a-via the S&P 500 would be under 1.00, but I use 1.00 here. One can verify the conservative nature of these figures simply by observing the fact that top quartile and 1SD vaginas are effectively "same as cash" in most global (meat) markets with friday and saturday trading days.
In addition, there are active vagina futures and options markets with high open interest (forgive the jargon), particularly around the contracts with January 1st and February 14th expiration dates and those that fall near investment bank bonus seasons. (Unfortunately, a discussion of the vagina swap market and vaginal rehypothecation is beyond the scope of this piece). ...
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