After a rusty “ghost ship” was spotted last week by off the coast of Haida Gwaii, Canadian authorities have now officially confirmed that debris from the March 2011 Japanese tsunami is approaching Canadian waters.
“It’s been drifting across the Pacific for a year, so it’s pretty beat up,” said marine search co-ordinator Jeff Olsson of Victoria’s Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre.
Air crews swooped down to survey the decks and signal any potential occupants — but received no replies. Canadian authorities used the vessel’s hull numbers to track down its Japanese owner, who confirmed nobody was aboard. “We know nobody’s in danger,” Mr. Olsson said.
The vessel, a squid-fishing boat, was moored at the Japanese port city of Hachinohe when the tsunami hit. Spotted by a routine coastal air patrol, the 45-metre ship was found drifting right-side-up about 260 kilometres from Cape Saint James on the southern tip of Haida Gwaii (formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands), off the coast of British Columbia.
Pope Benedict has something of a reputation for style. He’s been seen wearing Gucci sunglasses and his red Prada loafers earned him the title of “Accessorizer” of the Year by Esquire. Now the Pope has his own scent. An Italian perfume maker was commissioned by the Vatican to create the custom cologne. The exact formula is top secret but it’s rumored to have hints of lime, verbena and grass — reflecting the pontiffs love of nature.
Serving mass as an altar boy when I was young the only scent I remember in church was the smell of the incense that I carried at major religious ceremonies. As a Catholic I still expected my Pope to smell like a delicate combination of frankincense and myrrh. Here he is with his Prada loafers!
Boosted by an unusually warm winter, Washington’s famous cherry trees are looking fit and healthy this year and are blooming well ahead of schedule.
It’s almost as if they know they need to produce a special show of their pink and white blooms for 2012, which marks the 100th anniversary of the planting of the trees as a gift from Japan.
But as an expected million-plus visitors come through Washington for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival they may not be aware of a facility about five miles from the Tidal Basinthat has helped ensure the genetic legacy of the original trees while also breeding new varieties that the public can enjoy.
These trees reside at the U.S. National Arboretum, dedicated to the preservation and maintenance of ornamental plants. The 446-acre botanical research center houses more than 1,600 cherry trees that represent 400 genetically distinct varieties.
“When people think of flowering cherries, they think of the Tidal Basin,” says Margaret Pooler, a research geneticist at the arboretum. “But there’s so many more species that people haven’t seen yet.”
In celebration of the centennial of the plantings, the arboretum is introducing a new flowering cultivar this month called “Helen Taft.” Named after the first lady who played a pivotal role in getting the trees to the Tidal Basin, the seed parent of “Helen Taft” comes from a cutting of the tree that was planted by first lady Taft and the Japanese ambassador’s wife, Viscountess Chinda, in 1912.
“I think it’s important to recognize Helen Taft’s role because most people have no idea who she is,” Pooler says. “No one even thinks that it took some serious effort on both sides of the ocean to get these plants here.”
In addition to developing new varieties of flowering cherries, the arboretum has helped preserve the genetic heritage of the 1912 shipment of trees from Japan.
Mayor Ozaki and Mrs. Ozaki of Tokyo are pictured about 1912. Mayor Ozaki was instrumental in organizing the gift of 3,000 flowering cherry trees to the city of Washington in 1912.
In the late 1970, the deteriorating health of the original trees was noted by a former arboretum employee, Roland Jefferson, while collecting data at Potomac Park. The dying trees were being replaced by nursery stock, and Jefferson was afraid the original gift would be lost.
“They’re great beauty and I was concerned about their condition,” says Jefferson, an 88-year-old retired botanist. “I thought they should be saved for future generations to enjoy.”
As a preservation effort, the arboretum obtained cuttings of the surviving trees from the Tidal Basin and cultivated clones. They have since planted 450 of these clones at the Tidal Basin in cooperation with the National Park Service.
“The National Arboretum has been a strong supporter of our effort to sustain the grove,” Robert Defeo, chief horticulturist at the National Park Service, said.
In 1980, the arboretum was approached by Japanese officials who said they had lost the parent stock of cherry trees that they had given to the United States. The arboretum responded by providing them 3,000 cuttings of the original trees. “We also added original clones to our collection at the arboretum, so we have them preserved here long term,” Pooler says. “Even when the originals die, we have the exact clones here.”
According to the National Park Service, approximately 100 trees from the original gift of over 3,000 still survive, exceeding the average life span of 50 to 75 years in the USA.
“It’s significant that these have been here for 100 years,” Pooler says. “They’re a constant reminder of a friendship gift combined with a beautiful bloom.”
I heard the news that Davy Jones had died at 66 from a heart attack while I was driving my car to Alabama where I spent my early teens.
I was thinking, wow that was so incredibly sad…then I began to wonder why in the world was I so upset by this.
I had not thought about the Monkees for a long time and they were hardly the greatest band of their generation. But for me and millions of baby boomers, they certainly bring back great teenage memories.
The Monkees were the first manufactured band, long before the Spice Girls or Backstreet Boys. Chosen by audition, Mike Nesmith, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork and the Englishman Jones starred in “The Monkees.” a weekly TV caper about a young band which mimicked the Beatles and their recent movies A Hard Day’s Night and Help!.
I was a young teen when the show began its two-year run in 1966 and having caught the pop music bug after the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, I became a passionate fan. The show was on TV in the afternoon so I could catch it after school.
I guess I was so excited to see the Beatles that did not even notice that Davy also performed on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the very same night. At age 18, he sang, “I’d Do Anything” from the Broadway hit, “Oliver!,” in which he was appearing. Television, pop music, cool guys (I thought at the time) : it was a recipe for pop icon success. Short, cute Jones with that great british accent was not my favorite Monkee because the girls loved him…maybe I was jealous?
Hearing Daydream Believer on radio yesterday, I was instantly back in school. Written by John Stewart of the Kingston Trio and sung by Jones, it was the No.1 hit single for the Monkees for four weeks in December 1967.
I realized after listening that I was sad for my childhood which is now very long ago. Then I thought hey, if Davy Jones is gone, my friends and I are all getting old.
Very few television series have ever or will ever achieve what “The Simpsons”” did this week. After twenty-two years, the longest-running prime time series of all time reached its 500th episode and celebrated by evicting its central family from the town they’ve spent two decades building.
Over the years, the citizenry of Springfield has become as important to the success and longevity of the series as the Simpsons themselves. With so many characters to mix and match, the possible story situations remains nearly endless.
And it was with plenty of familiar faces — including unexpected ones like Sideshow Bob — that the town concocted a secret meeting to determine whether or not to banish the Simpsons from the town.
It was an odd episode, with the family finding surprising joy off the grid in a place dubbed “The Outlands.” It even got its own Simpson-esque introductory sequence. As expected, the townsfolk ultimately felt bad for treating the Simpsons so poorly, regretting their decision. Less expected, the family decided they liked their new lifestyle away from all the chaos of modern civilization.
But, inspired by the Simpsons themselves, one by one the citizenry of Springfield started making their way to The Outlands. So much so that by the end of the episode, it was becoming almost indistinguishable from Springfield itself. Does this mean that in future episode, fans should question whether or not this is really Springfield, or if it’s Springfield 2.0 AKA The Outlands? The actual homage to the 500th episode happened with the couch gag, which appeared to cycle through every single gag used over the course of the show. It’s a freeze-frame aficionado’s dream! I will find a version of it and post it soon.
Chris De Burgh sang a song about it…Gene Wilder made the classic film about it…and now a a new scientific study by the University of Rochester has set out to prove that women who wear red attract more men.
“Red is an indicator of sexual receptivity,” says Andrew Elliot, a psychology professor at the University and one of the authors of the study.
Elliot and his colleagues conducted two studies to show just how sexy red is. In one, they told male undergraduates that they were about to participate in a study that would — clever cover — simulate an online chat with women, but in reality was a study about whether the men would ask a girl wearing a red shirt more intimate questions.
The men were told to look at a photo of the woman for five seconds. They were shown either a photo of a woman wearing a red shirt, or of one in a green shirt.
The men were then given a folder brimming with 24 questions, and were instructed to choose five to ask the woman they’d seen in the photograph. The questions range from “Where are you from?” to “How could a guy get your attention at a bar?” Guys who saw the woman in the red shirt asked predominantly more questions about getting her attention at a bar.
The second experiment, involving 22 college males, yielded similar results. Guys were asked to talk to a woman. She wore either a red or a blue shirt. If she wore a red one, the guys tended to sit closer to her. “Red is an aphrodisiac,” said Elliot, whose study was published this month in the European Journal of Social Psychology.
A study published earlier this year in the Journal of Experimental Psychology by Eliot and an international team of researchers indicated that red’s allure holds true for women as well. Across seven studies, the authors found that men who wear red are more attractive and more sexually desirable to women. “These findings indicate that color not only has aesthetic value but can carry meaning and impact psychological functioning in subtle, important, and provocative ways,” the researchers said.
Eliot has a teenage daughter now, and she recently returned from a trip to the mall with a red dress. Her father’s first thought? “I’m hiding that dress in the closet.”
I went to my very first Jimmy Buffet concert Saturday night in Birmingham, Alabama. I am not sure what I expected but it was certainly an unusual event…half concert, half party and 100% fun!
Fans waited more than a decade for a live performance of “Margaritaville,” “A Pirate Looks at Forty,” “Come Monday,” “Fins,” “Cheeseburger in Paradise” and his other signature songs. Buffett, now 65, and his 12-member band, the Coral Reefers, hadn’t played in Birmingham since November 2001.
The arena was packed with about 14,000 fans or more aptly named “parrot heads” many of them decked out in parrot head hats, shark-fin visors, Hawaiian shirts, grass skirts and other tropical garb. Ideal for people-watching especially a first timer to a Buffet concert. I was certainly underdressed. Buffett set a congenial tone at when he strolled on stage to introduce the opening act decked out barefooted in a T-shirt and swimming trunks. “Sweet home Alabama!” he proclaimed. he was clearly excited and ready to celebrate his strong ties to the state. He went to Catholic School in Mobile and actually one of my old professors at Spring Hill College there taught him to play…ironically a Jesuit priest.
He recalled his past in Mobile, inserted Birmingham into various song lyrics, praised the state’s football champs (including my alma mater, Auburn) and generally acted like a proud homeboy. Photos of Alabama were part of the stage design, displayed on a huge screen behind the performers.
Even his playlist, nearly 30 numbers strong, clearly was made for the occasion. It included “Bama Breeze,” “Pascagoula Run,” “Back Where I Come From,” “Stars Fell on Alabama,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Birmingham” and “Southern Cross.”
Buffett delivered familiar song introductions with a wink and a grin. That upped the audience’s excitement, as listeners anticipated the first notes of “Jamaica Mistaica,” “Volcano” or “Son of a Son of a Sailor.”
He is no Sinatra but he sounded just like I remembered back in his hey day. Today I have a renewed appreciation for Jimmy Buffet and his crazy fans.
Google intentionally circumvented the default privacy settings of Apple’s Safari browser, using a backdoor to set cookies on browsers set to reject them, in the latest privacy debacle for the search and advertising giant.
Google immediately disabled the practice after the Wall Street Journal disclosed the practice this week..
Safari, which accounts for about 6% of desktop browsing and more than 50% of mobile browsing, is the only major browser to block so-called third party cookies by default..at least I thought so before the article…
When you visit a website, all browsers, including Safari, allow that site to put a small tracking file on your computer, which allows the site to identify a unique user, track what they have done and remember settings. However, many sites also have Facebook “Like” buttons, ads served by third parties, weather widgets powered by other sites or comment systems run by a third party.
Safari blocks the sites that power those services from setting or reading cookies, so a Facebook widget on a third-party site, for instance, can’t tell if you are logged in, so it can’t load a personalized widget. Google, along with a number of ad servers, were caught by Mayer avoiding this block, using a loophole in Safari that lets third parties set cookies if the browser thinks you are filling out an online form.
Google’s rationale seems to be that Apple’s default settings don’t adhere to standard web practices and don’t actually reflect what users want, since the browser never asks users if that’s the privacy setting they want. Facebook even goes so far as to suggest to outside developers that getting around the block is a best practice! Ha we are all already concerned about privacy and they call this back door approach a best practice?
Google said it used the backdoor so that it could place +1 buttons on ads it places around the web via its Adsense program, so that logged-in Google+ users could press the button to share an ad. Without the work-around, the button wouldn’t be able to tell Google which Google account to link the button to.
Now if Safari weren’t so dominant on mobile to the popularity of the iPhone, it’d hardly be worth the code to get at the 6% of desktop users.
But more to the point, if this is a problem for Google and Facebook, and if the defaults actually do mess with user’s expectations, it would seem that there are better ways to bring attention to the issue than getting busted working around them. What do you guys think? Are we watched every cyber second of the day?
The most talked-about advertisement of the Super Bowl did not have a barely clothed supermodel, a cute puppy or a smart-aleck baby. It was a cinematic two-minute commercial created by Wieden and Kennedy, featuring Clint Eastwood, an icon of American brawn, likening Chrysler’s comeback to the country’s own economic revival.
And within 12 hours of running, it became one of the loudest flashpoints yet in the early re-election campaign of President Obama, providing a reminder, as if one were needed, that in today’s polarized political climate even a tradition as routine as a football championship can be thrust into a partisan light.
Some conservative critics saw the ad as political payback and accused the automaker of handing the president a prime-time megaphone in front of one of the largest television audiences of the year.
Karl Rove, the Republican strategist who served as President George W. Bush’s top political adviser, said Chrysler was trying to settle a debt to the Obama administration for rescuing Detroit carmakers with billions of dollars in loans.
“The leadership of auto companies feel they need to do something to repay their political patronage,” Mr. Rove said on Fox News, where viewers of the network’s morning program “Fox & Friends” rated the ad their least favorite of the game. “It is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.”
David Axelrod, President Obama’s chief political strategist, seized on the commercial almost immediately. He sent out a Twitter message shortly after it ran, declaring, “Powerful spot.” And, as if to underscore the Obama campaign’s lack of involvement in it, “Did Clint shoot that, or just narrate it?”
The White House cast the ad, which was accompanied by similar full-page newspaper advertisements on Monday, as an affirmation of the president’s economic policies. Asked by a joking reporter whether the commercial counted as an “in-kind contribution” from Mr. Eastwood, Jay Carney, Mr. Obama’s press secretary, said it merely laid out the facts, and indeed the ad resembled a main theme of the president’s State of the Union address last month.
“This president,” Mr. Carney said, “made decisions that were not very popular at the time that were guided by two important principles: one, that he should do what he could to ensure that one million jobs would not be lost; and two, that the American automobile industry should be able to thrive globally, if the right conditions were created.”
The ad’s title, “It’s Halftime in America,” along with its uplifting and inspirational script, recalled one of the most famous campaign ads ever produced, President Ronald Reagan’s re-election year “Morning in America” ad of 1984 — albeit with a post-recession twist.
Mr. Eastwood, who narrates the new ad and appears among images of molten steel and city streets, says: “How do we come from behind? How do we come together? And how do we win?” He concludes, looking straight into the camera: “This country can’t be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again, and when we do, the world’s going to hear the roar of our engines.” Dan Wieden
In an e-mail, Mr. Eastwood said politics were not in the equation. “The ad doesn’t have a political message,” he said. “It is about American spirit, pride and job growth.” Mr. Eastwood, a former mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif., who usually voted Republican, has acknowledged recently having a political change of heart. Chrysler similarly denied that politics were at play. But that ignored the fact that as a major beneficiary of a government loan program derided by many conservatives, whatever it does over the course of the next nine months will be scrutinized in a political light. Based on rates NBC was quoting advertisers, the two-minute spot cost Chrysler about $12.8 million.
Shown before an audience of more than 110 million people, according to Nielsen, the advertisement came at a fortunate time for Mr. Obama’s re-election team. It dovetailed with a positive jobs report on Friday and the rolling start of a general election campaign that it assumes will be run against Mitt Romney. (Mr. Romney opposed the auto bailout, as did Mr. Eastwood in an interview with The Los Angeles Times in November.)
But the conservative outcry over the spot brought to the foreground the tricky politics of the auto industry rescue, which has cut both ways for the Obama administration. What do you think.
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