What Would Be In Your Perfect Library?

110 best books: The perfect library

Getting Back At the Bullies

School can be as traumatizing as any battlefield. There are the locker room wedgies, the Dodgeball attacks, the lunchroom shunnings. But even the most cringe-worthy moment from your high school days probably doesn't compare to the humiliation felt by one freshman male from Central Kings Rural High School in Nova Scotia, who dared to wear a pink shirt on the first day of school last year.

The poor boy paid dearly for his fashion choice: A group of older students mocked him relentlessly, threatening to beat him up.

The incident might have served as a warning for other males at the school to avoid anything in pastels. But instead, two senior boys, David Shepherd and Travis Price, took up the bullied boy's cause as a rallying cry.

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Have You Seen A Man In a Red Suit Delivering Presents?

Who Says Angels Don't Look After You?

Now That's What You Call Unlucky

A Bosnian man whose home has been hit an incredible five times by meteorites believes he is being targeted by aliens. Experts at Belgrade University have confirmed that all the rocks Radivoje Lajic has handed over were meteorites.

They are now investigating local magnetic fields to try and work out what makes the property so attractive to the heavenly bodies. But Mr Lajic, who has had a steel girder reinforced roof put on the house he owns in the northern village of Gornja Lamovite, has an alternative explanation.

He said: "I am obviously being targeted by extraterrestrials. I don't know what I have done to annoy them but there is no other explanation that makes sense.

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What Car Do You Have? A Red One.

From Matthew Parris at the Times

My friend Kim can be a little absent-minded. Driven to the shops by her husband last week, she popped in to buy something, leaving him at the wheel. Then out she bustled and leapt into the passenger seat of the waiting car. It did not move. “What's all that hooting from behind us?” she asked, as the car behind flashed its lights and sounded its horn.

“Maybe it's your husband,” said the driver. “I'm not your husband. This is not your car.”

I Knew It! I Knew This Was How The Internet Worked!

Please Explain Yourself MORE CLEARLY

How I laughed. I CAN REALLY RELATE TO THIS.

Boycott China Over Tibet?

What a lovely sentiment.

Pope & Pomp

Does this picture not suggest that something might possibly have gone wrong with Catholicism?

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How To Keep Your Girlfriend Interested

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63-year-old solves riddle from 1970

Israeli mathematician unravels puzzle that baffled scientists for decades

JERUSALEM - A mathematical puzzle that baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has been cracked — by a 63-year-old immigrant who once had to work as a security guard.

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What's that you're drawing in your moleskine notebook?

A chance to have a look at some excellent sketches sent in to skineart.

How to Age-Proof Your Memory

An interesting little video on a growing area of understanding. Giving your memory a work out keeps you going as you get older.

http://pokedandprodded.health.com/poked_prodded/2008/03/how-to-age-proo.html

British Army Officer Advert

While the NUT shamelessly votes to ban army recruitment in secondary schools, here is a fantastic advert from the armed forces, doing what they do best.

Careful Which Hotel You Book...

You may get more than you bargained for.

9 hotels you won't believe

Scientifically Proven! People who wear glasses aren’t geeks

And we are even more agreeable as people. Must be all that extra brain power.

So there.

Latest research into myopia or shortsightedness reveals that people who wear glasses are not stereotypical geeks or nerds.

“We have literally busted the myth that people who wear glasses are introverted or have particular personality characteristics. They are more likely to be agreeable and open, rather than closed and introverted,” said A/Prof Paul Baird of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Eye Research Australia.

Myopia or shortsightedness is a complex eye condition which affects about one in four Australians.

In the word’s biggest study into factors linked to myopia, and utilising the University’s Australian Twin Registry, 633 twins and a comparative group of 278 family members were involved in the study over a four year period.

For the first time in a study into personality and myopia, participants were analysed using a state-of-the-art measure of the five major personality factors (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism), administered by psychologists from the University of Melbourne.

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Awesome Creation

Be inspired by these photos of creation by Jim Zuckerman

Smile you're on ele-vision: How a camera attached to an elephant's trunk captured amazing jungle views

The Dailiy Mail revealed the amazing story of how four tiger cubs were captured on special cameras in logs carried by elephants - giving the most intimate insight into their early lives ever recorded. Now, they show for the first time other creatures of the jungle caught in this extraordinary - and pioneering - way.

Cheeky langur monkeys, a rare sloth bear, spotted deer and a leopard with her cub are just some of the other animals that film-maker John Downer came across in his fascinating experiment.

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Autograph Mania

Boston Red Sox pitcher Hideki Okajima is asked for his autographs from the outfield fence before the Major League Baseball regular season game between the Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

What is it about autographs that people are so keen to get hold of them? I can only guess that it is because people want a piece of you that is unique. But to my mind it still means nothing. If I saw someone famous, I'd rather have some kind of little conversation with them. That would be my memento.

Whoever you are, people want some small piece of you. What autograph do you leave?

25 Photos Taken at the Exact Right Time

It's not often I can get the phone on my camera to take the picture I want it to, because there is about a 2 second delay from the time you press the button. So if I wanted to take any of these shots I would have needed to be able to look into the future.

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Girl Dies After Parents Pray for Healing Instead of Seeking Medical Help

WESTON, Wis. — An 11-year-old girl died after her parents prayed for healing rather than seek medical help for a treatable form of diabetes, police said Tuesday.

Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said Madeline Neumann died Sunday. "She got sicker and sicker until she was dead," he said.

Vergin said an autopsy determined the girl died from diabetic ketoacidosis, an ailment that left her with too little insulin in her body, and she had probably been ill for about 30 days, suffering symptoms like nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness.

The girl's parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, attributed the death to "apparently they didn't have enough faith," the police chief said.

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Richest Man in the World: Invests like a Girl

Warren Buffett Invests Like a Girl

For as long as I can remember, adding the phrase "like a girl" to the end of whatever you were saying was a put-down, an insult, something to come to fisticuffs over. Little boys the world over hated being told that they, for example, "threw like a girl." I'm not defending the statement, and as a member of the fairer sex, I certainly don't agree with its intent, but hey, that's been the case from the playground on up.

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Lovely Dawn Chorus: Nature's Morning Alarm

It's an ever-present feature of spring and summer mornings, but many people are only aware of the dawn chorus through insomnia or a chance encounter during an early start. Very few of us set the alarm to listen to one of the musical wonders of the natural world.

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Listen to Dawn Chorus

Dawn Chorus here if missing above

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Scientists unveil revolutionary 'racetrack' computer memory

The prospect of iPods that can hold millions of songs and PCs being able to turn on instantly, rather than taking minutes to "boot up", comes much closer today.

A Californian team has developed a new generation of memory that combines the high performance and reliability of solid state "flash" memory, stored in microchips, with the high capacity of the PC's hard disk drive, which is cheap but contains moving parts and is slow.In two papers in the journal Science, Dr Stuart Parkin and colleagues at the IBM Almaden Research Centre in San Jose describe a revolutionary technology dubbed "racetrack" memory, or RM memory.

The team believes that it marks a milestone that could lead to electronic devices capable of storing far more data in the same amount of space than is possible today, with lightning-fast boot times, far lower cost and unprecedented stability and durability.

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Odds of Dying

While not wanting to sound morbid, there are two certainties in life, death & taxes. This pretty little diagram illustrates your comparative odds of dying (1in 1 - a statistical certainty) in a number of interesting ways. (Click to enlarge).

'Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.' Proverbs 4:23

Are We in Spring or Winter? I Can't Tell!

Here are the top ten websites for spring, according to the Telegraph.

Lion Lessons Part II

This was the horrific moment a British teacher was savaged by a lion - coming within inches of death.

The big cat pounced on Kate Drew from behind and dragged her to the ground, sinking its teeth into the back of her neck.

As wardens on a Zimbabwe game reserve rushed to help, the 400lb lion kept the 28-year-old tourist firmly in its grip - but, mercifully, its jaws just missed her brain stem.

Read More & at the Telegraph

The Choir: Boys Don't Sing

Choirmaster Gareth Malone fulfills his dream of leading a 100 strong, all boys choir out on the stage at the Royal Albert Hall.

If you want to catch the very last episode on BBC iPlayer, as of today you've got one day left to view it.

Caption Competition Part IV

Photography by Cosmin Bumbut

"What do you mean, 'I'm not my usual happy self?'"

Karate Expert Gets Taught Lion Moves

Nature sometimes has a great way of pricking the bubble of our awful, overweening pretentiousness. Gitanjali Kolanad is a self-proclaimed expert in so-called Kalaripayat, a Karate style that supposedly emulates the moves of a lion. So when Kolanad decided to do a photo-shoot with an actual lion, the lion decided she needed to learn Lion Move lesson 101, and almost killed her.

The video itself is both hilarious at pricking this lady's presumptious pomposity - I cried with laughter at the seriousness with which she related the events - and also terrifying when you see people having to relearn basic lessons about lions. Here are those lessons learned once again, just in case you might need reminding:

1. Being in a room with a lion is a MISTAKE.

2. The lion is not just being playful. It is just trying to kill you.

3. Pretending to be an expert in lion moves next to a lion and prancing around one like a prize prat may well provoke a lion to kill you.

I hope you've learned something today. If you're religious, turn to holy scriptures. It's there too. 1 Peter 5:8-9.

Watch how the lion in 2 seconds flat sweeps the woman clean off her feet & disables her in step one before a bemused keeper has to kick it in the neck to remove it from its prey. Then have a look how it wants to act like a pussy cat with a mouse. Rolling on to its side so it can go in for the kill. Terrifying. And absolutely hilarious. All at the same time. For a real treat, the link at the bottom is to a TV quality video clip. Definitely worth the extra time it takes to download.

http://www.thestar.com/fpLarge/video/346482

And don't say I didn't warn you. Here's that lesson again. Never play with lions.

Not All Birds Of A Feather Should Flock Together

Just because you are the same genus doesn't mean you are the same species. People make this category error all the time. This picture illustrates clearly: choose who you partner with carefully. You may not be well suited.

Parent Leaves Child In New York To Get Home On Their Own

What is the world coming to?

__________________________

I left my 9-year-old at Bloomingdale’s (the original one) a couple weeks ago. Last seen, he was in first floor handbags as I sashayed out the door. Bye-bye! Have fun!

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25 Worst Ever Answers to Elementary School Test on Bible Knowledge

These answers come from an elementary school test. Kids were asked questions about the Old and New Testaments. The following statements about the Bible were written by children.

They have not been retouched or corrected. All the (incorrect) spelling has been left in.

1. In the first book of the bible, guinessis. God got tired of creating the world so he took the sabbath off.

2. Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. Noah's wife was joan of ark. Noah built and ark and the animals came on in pears.

3. Lots wife was a pillar of salt during the day, but a ball of fire during the night.

4. The jews were a proud people and throughout history they had trouble with unsympathetic genitals.

5. Sampson was a strongman who let himself be led astray by a jezebel like delilah.

6. Samson slayed the philistines with the axe of the apostles.

7. Moses led the jews to the red sea where they made unleavened bread which is bread without any ingredients.

8. The egyptians were all drowned in the dessert. Afterwards, moses went up to mount cyanide to get the ten commandments.

9. The first commandments was when eve told adam to eat the apple.

10. The seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.

11. Moses died before he ever reached canada. Then joshua led the hebrews in the battle of geritol.

12. The greatest miricle in the bible is when joshua told his son to stand still and he obeyed him.

13. David was a hebrew king who was skilled at playing the liar. he fought the finkelsteins, a race of people who lived in biblical times.

14. Solomon, one of davids sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.

15. When mary heard she was the mother of jesus, she sang the magna carta.

16. When the three wise guys from the east side arrived they found jesus in the manager.

17. Jesus was born because mary had an immaculate contraption.

18. St. john the blacksmith dumped water on his head.

19. Jesus enunciated the golden rule, which says to do unto others before they do one to you. He also explained a man doth not live by sweat alone.

20. It was a miricle when jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the tombstone off the entrance.

21. The people who followed the lord were called the 12 decibels.

22. The epistels were the wives of the apostles.

23. One of the oppossums was st. matthew who was also a taximan.

24. St. paul cavorted to christianity, he preached holy acrimony which is another name for marraige.

25. Christians have only one spouse. this is called monotony.