MikeLigalig.com

Santana Greatest Hits. Berg: That photo, by Joel Baldwin, was hanging on one of my designer's walls.  I always admired it but had no use for it until I got this panic call from a meeting being held upstairs.  "Can you possibly come up with a cover for Santana's Greatest Hits by tomorrow?"  The design department were miracle workers but a cover by tomorrow?  But I said, "sure!"  I went downstairs, got the thing off the wall, brought it up and said, "How do you like that?"  And they said, "That's great!"  No type on the cover.  We put the type on a sticker.

Loverboy Get Lucky. Berg: I commissioned the photograph.  I wanted to pump as much color into the cover as I could. We found the best pair of red leather pants but they didn't fit any models. The photographer, named David Kennedy, had a 16-year-old daughter.  They fit her perfectly. Then we got an Argentinian male model, 6 foot 5, and hired him on the basis of his big hands.

The Cleveland Orchestra George Szell Conducts Beethoven. Berg [Laughs ruefully]: George Szell is a case in point.  He was difficult. He doesn't have any qualifications to have a taste in typography but exercised it [on a previous LP] because he is the "maestro."  After the fact, his producer told me that Szell had called me a "flaxen-haired [unprintable]" in a conversation they had.  So after Szell died we were doing a re-release of the Beethoven Fifth Symphony.  What you do when you are working on dead people is go through the files and see what you got.  And lucky me I found this picture.  Getting even was right up there with selling the LP.  And I got even.  It looks like he is blocking his face but to me it says "Five."

Ramsey Lewis Salongo. Berg: Ramsey Lewis was a sweet guy.  He loved our input.  We scheduled a shoot with a really hot photographer named Norman Seeff.  On the day of the shoot Ramsey Lewis calls up and says he's had an accident.  He fell off the stage the night before and knocked all his teeth loose. He had braces on his teeth. He asked if we still wanted to do it.  I said, "It looks great. Smile."  [laughs] During the shoot Norman got on the phone with me and said "these teeth look horrendous."  So I said, "Let's paint him!"  Later, when it came time to title the album I wanted to call it "Colored," which is stepping out a little far for a black artist.  Ramsey loved it and wanted it too.  But Columbia Records management hated it.  They didn't want any part of that kind of thing.  "Salongo" means something but I have no idea what.  Maybe "accident."

Bob Dylan Greatest Hits Berg: Dylan hadn't had any product out in while. So we decided that it would be nice for the consumer to give them a little bonus.  It was the first time a poster was ever enclosed in an album.  I picked Glaser because he had a big reputation as a poster artist.

John Berg's greatest hits


John Berg at his Guild Hall exhibition. Photo by Durrell Godfrey


Between 1961 and 1985 as Columbia Records' Art Director, then Creative Director and eventually Vice President, Berg [...] designed or oversaw some of the most iconic LP sleeves of the analog recording era.  However, in spite of achieving the pinnacles of pop-culture exposure, his work rarely gets associated with his name.

cooper.edu/

John Hendrickson Berg
January 12, 1932 â€" October 11, 2015

John Berg, an art director for Columbia records responsible for iconic album covers for Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, died at age 83 (Courtesy of The Cooper Union Alumni)

John Berg, the art director for Columbia Records who designed classic LP covers for Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Sly Stone and more, died of pneumonia at his home in New York, The New York Times reports. He was 83.

BY JON BLISTEIN October 13, 2015, Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/john-berg-album-art-director-for-springsteen-dylan-dead-at-83-20151013#ixzz3onPKQVQ1

Risks of turmeric supplements

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued a warning about the turmeric based food supplement Fortodol (also sold as Miradin). Fortodol has been found to contain the strong anti inflammatory drug nimesulide. Nimesulide can cause serious damage to the liver and is not licensed as a medicine in the UK. The Food Standards Agency in the USA states that taking products that contain unknown amounts of nimesulide could be very harmful.

Fortodol and Miradin are sold in the UK and on the internet as food supplements. The FSA advises anyone taking these products to stop doing so immediately, and contact their doctor if they have any signs of liver disease. The signs include jaundice, dark urine, nausea, vomiting, unusual tiredness, stomach or abdominal pain, or loss of appetite.

more at http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancers-in-general/cancer-questions/can-turmeric-prevent-bowel-cancer

Jerry was a post-op marvel. There are some patients in their 70s who surprise us with how quickly they recover from an operation. And yes, we did it the minimally invasive way. But Jerry outperformed them all. A week post-op, he walked in without a cane, without a limp, got up from a chair faster than I can and showed me a healed surgical wound that looked a month old. The "stiffness" was gone; he now had normal range of motion. Jerry was quite pleased â€" happy with my job â€" but there was also an air of pride or confidence, perhaps victory, about him. He was just so convinced that he had been eased by and sped through the healing process thanks to turmeric.

I still chalked it up, then at least, to psychology. This worked fine until about six weeks ago, when we did his other hip. He got better even faster. Home the second day. No pain meds. Lots of yellow capsules on the table. I decided to get some for myself.

time.com/

At the University of Arizona, researchers led by endocrinologist Janet Funk injected a bacterial substance known to cause joint inflammation (which is what arthritis ultimately is) into the bellies of the rodents. If the researchers gave them turmeric first (also by injection into the abdomen), there was far less joint swelling produced. A specific active ingredient of the turmeric worked better still. A rigorous protocol and pictures of the rats' normal and swollen joints convinced me there was a real effect. Further experiments by the group even showed how turmeric turns down inflammation, by blocking production of the protein that turns on the gene that tells tiny blood vessels to grow.

And you just can't research food supplements without bumping into the affable Dr. Andrew Weil (also from Arizona). Yes, he has a dog in the fight, with a financial interest in turmeric-containing products, which have, he strongly claims, benefits ranging from fighting Alzheimer's to fighting breast cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and psoriasis. Too many to be true? Maybe. But I also know this: all of these diseases, like Jerry's arthritis, share a common need. They depend on the formation of new blood vessels â€" basically, on specific local instances of inflammation. And that's what Funk's papers showed the turmeric controls. With the work of Funk and Weil, what I had seen in Jerry was starting to make sense. But it wasn't the papers that convinced me. It was how Jerry did in the hospital.

He denied it. Even when I did the twisting maneuver we use to see if it's the hip that hurts, there was no wince, no ouch. I had never done the operation for anyone without pain. I explained this. And reasonable though he was, he still wanted a new hip, "to get rid of the stiffness."

Some kind of denial is going on here, was all I could think. I made sure he knew full well what the surgery would entail. He still wanted it. So I did the operation. "Can I keep up with the turmeric in the hospital?" he asked. I saw no reason why not. That's when I actually saw the big yellow capsules on his bedside table. And when I first gave them any serious thought.

Now, alternative-medicine doctors and orthopedic surgeons are miles apart on what eating plants can actually fix. Scurvy, night-blindness, constipation and, of course, hunger are the problems they tell us in medical school that plants can cure. Psychosomatic factors are said to underlie all the other "benefits." But I looked and found two well-done scientific papers studying the effects of turmeric on a group of patients who I thought should be far less likely to be affected by psychosomatic factors. Because they were rats.

But what got me interested in Jerry's turmeric wasn't his testimonials or even his personality â€" it was seeing him bounce back from surgery.

Jerry had two bad hips; the joints didn't form quite right as he grew up. They degenerated and started to hurt as he entered his 60s. When he first started coming to me, I gave him the usual anti-inflammatory medications we use for arthritis pain. He had no side effects, but he wasn't helped much either, so he stopped the pills and lived with the pain. Then he found turmeric.

Soon enough, there was no pain at all. And his lower back and hands, which ached before, were also now pain-free. So I was curious last year, when at age 73 he came in and told me he was ready for a hip replacement. "It's just so stiff" is all he would say. He certainly had the limp, the trouble with stairs and the slow rise from a chair that you see in folks with hip arthritis. His X-ray showed bone-on-bone erosion and plenty of spurring; his examination showed the profound loss of motion you would also expect. Everything said "just do a hip replacement" â€" except for that one cardinal feature: pain.

Can Turmeric Relieve Pain? One Doctor's Opinion

By Dr. Scott Haig    
Monday, July 13, 2009
 

Steve Lupton / Corbis

Four in the morning, four more at night. That's eight big mustard-yellow capsules every day. They contain nothing but turmeric, a spice. But for Jerry, they are medicine. He loves the stuff â€" says it changed his life.

Now this sort of thing is not uncommon; I'd guess 20% to 30% of my patients are into some type of supplements or "nutriceuticals." But Jerry stands out. He's a conservative, older guy from that generation of men who were most definitely not "in touch with" their bodies. He's practical, worldly, wise and skeptical. He's not interested in any other remedies or practices. (Monogamy in the supplement world is a true rarity, and it commands respect there too.) He has, in fact, gotten so many friends and acquaintances to use the stuff that it's sold out of the stores where he buys it.

but i thought i gave all that i've picked to you!

'Lando' intensifies as it nears land, alert raised on strong winds, storm surge

By: InterAksyon.com | Rommel Rio, News5 | With PNA
October 16, 2015 7:00 AM


Pagasa image showing the position of typhoon 'Lando' as of 10 a.m. Friday, October 16, with tropical storm Champi close behind it over the Pacific Ocean.

InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

MANILA - (UPDATE 4 - 3:53 p.m.) Typhoon “Lando” (international name: Kuppo) continues to intensify as it approaches the Isabela-Aurora area, where it is expected to make landfall Saturday night or early Sunday.

In an indication of how dangerous the typhoon could be, reports said officials of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, which has declared a red alert, will be briefing President Benigno Aquino III in Malacanang.

Public storm warning signal No. 2, which means winds of 61-120 kilometers per hour can be expected in at least 24 hours, has been hoisted over Isabela and Aurora provinces as Lando continued to move west at 15 kph packing maximum sustained winds of 130 kph near the center with gusts of up to 160 kph.

Meanwhile, Signal No. 1, or winds of 30-60 kph are expected in at least 36 hours, was raised over more provinces. These are:

Cagayan
Kalinga
Mt. Province
Ifugao
Benguet
Quirino
Nueva Vizcaya
Nueva Ecija
Bulacan
Pampanga
Tarlac
Pangasinan
Rizal
Quezon, including Polillo Island
Camarines Norte
Camarines Sur
Catanduanes

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration also said La Union, Abra, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte, Zambales and Metro Manila are likely to be placed under Signal No. 1 as the storm progresses.

Winds, storm surge threaten Aurora, Isabela

more at http://www.interaksyon.com/article/118990/storm-signals-up-as-lando-becomes-typhoon

accuweather.com/

Philippines Braces for ‘Catastrophic’ Typhoon Koppu

Mark Rivett-Carnac
@mrivettcarnac 
5:12 AM ET, 16 October 2015     

It is projected to drive 115 m.p.h. winds

Typhoon Koppu may have started as modest tropical storm but experts warn it could strengthen into a deadly super typhoon when it makes landfall in the Philippines on Sunday morning.

As it barrels out of the Pacific, Koppu is projected to drive 115 m.p.h. winds and a storm surge onto Luzon island, possible resulting in “a catastrophic flood scenario,” Robert Speta, a meteorologist with Japan broadcaster NHK World, wrote on his WesternPacificWeather.com blog.

It is estimated that the storm could take two days to pass over Luzon island on its way north towards Taiwan. As Koppu lingers it could release up to 35 inches of torrential rain, raising the risk of floods and landslides, the South China Morning Post reported.

The Philippines is no stranger to devastating storms. In November 2013, more than 6,000 people died when Typhoon Haiyan cast a 15-foot storm surge and 120 m.p.h. winds through low-lying areas.

time.com/

sorry ha? duda gyod ko basta manorya ni hubag...

McCaughey Septuplets Turn 18 Years Old

Time flies by quickly as every parent knows. Almost 18 years ago, Kenny and Bobbie McCaughey made history when they gave birth to the world’s first surviving septuplets. Bobby and her husband declined having selective reduction after learning they were pregnant with seven children after fertility treatment. They decided to leave it in God’s hands, and now these babies are about to celebrate their 18th birthday as they prepare to head out into the world as adults.

They were born in Des Moines, Iowa and Bobbie says the time has flown with these seven children against all odds.


-faithtap.com/

"Some of those trials had to be stopped because the patients getting the antioxidants were dying faster," he said.

In a previous study on mice, Swedish researchers said antioxidants, including vitamin E, caused a three-fold increase in the number of cancer tumours and led the rodents to die twice as fast.

Older studies put forth similar results for breast and prostate cancers.


news.yahoo.com/

It appears antioxidants help cancer cells by fighting against a type of molecule in the human body that can attack or damage them as they metastasise, the scientists said.

The results have not yet been tested on people, but researchers suggest that cancer patients should consider not supplementing their diets with the oxidation-fighting substances.

The notion that antioxidants are good for you has gained such force that they have been given to cancer patients in clinical trials, said study co-author Sean Morrison, who heads a research institute at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas.

Antioxidants allow the body to prevent DNA damage from chemicals known as free radicals, and are produced naturally by humans and found in leafy greens, vegetables or fruit.

"Our results suggest that antioxidants promote disease progression, at least in melanoma, by promoting metastasis," the study says.

Metastasis is the spread of cancer from one part of the body to another, and leads to death in most people fighting the disease.

Antioxidants speed up cancer spread in mice: study

AFP
October 14, 2015

Scientists in the US demonstrated that human melanoma cells spread in some experiments about two months earlier in mice injected with antioxidant N-acetylcysteine (NAC) than in those that were not


Scientists in the US demonstrated that human melanoma cells spread in some experiments about two months earlier in mice injected with antioxidant N-acetylcysteine (NAC) than in those that were not (AFP Photo/Philippe Merle)

Paris (AFP) - Antioxidant supplements that are supposed to boost health and slow ageing could in fact spur the spread of melanoma, the deadliest type of skin cancer, researchers said Wednesday.

The findings support recent studies showing that an over-the-counter vitamin and another drug containing antioxidants can cause a jump in the number of tumours and hike their aggressiveness.

In the new study, published in Nature, scientists in the United States demonstrated that human melanoma cells spread in some experiments about two months earlier in mice injected with antioxidant N-acetylcysteine (NAC) than in those that were not.

But then, I’ve always believed that Cayetano doesn’t really care if he looks like a turncoat, as long as he is able to pursue his personal political ambitions. This is a man, after all, who demanded that then-candidate Noynoy Aquino present proof that he is not, in fact, mentally incapable of seeking the presidency in 2010; and then, after Aquino won, Cayetano became one of the staunchest allies of the administration.

Early this year, after the Mamasapano massacre happened, Cayetano again became a critic of the government, as if he could find nothing good that Aquino and his people had done to save the SAF 44. And when the administration Liberal Party began looking for a running mate for Secretary Mar Roxas, Cayetano offered his services, eliciting knowing smiles from those involved in the search.

Cayetano, it should be clear by now, is only for Cayetano. And if no one will adopt him, given his record of opportunism, perhaps he should just adopt himself.

thestandard.com.ph/

If the 2016 elections were a game of musical chairs, Cayetano has been eliminated, since everyone seeking the second-highest office in the land has already found a seat when the music stopped. After all, Senator Bongbong Marcos has found Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago and Senator Antonio Trillanes has latched onto Senator Grace Poeâ€"never mind if Poe already hooked up a long time ago with Senator Chiz Escudero.

(I remain convinced that Trillanes is only running because he needs to be able to attack Vice President Jejomar Binay during the campaign period, and not because he seriously wants to be Vice President. Trillanes’ reason for being in the past year or so has been only to attack Binay, whatever his real motivation is for doing so.)

Cayetano has not filed a certificate seeking to become Vice President, of course. But perhaps Cayetano should, even now that Duterte has withdrawn from the race, just so he doesn’t embarrass himself.

In the end, we will never know what the non-candidate Duterte, who stirred up the sort of enthusiasm that I have never seen before (and probably never will again) for someone so reluctant to run, could have accomplished if he had become President. And maybe that’s all for the best.

* * *

But what about Cayetano, the man who would be Duterte’s running mate? What’s the senator to do, now that the star he wanted so desperately to hitch his wagon to didn’t even come close to hitching distance?

Cayetano’s quest for the vice presidency is all but dead in the murky water of the Laguna Bay in his hometown of Taguig. And Cayetano’s naked attempts to convince Duterte to run, so that the mayor may be pressed into service as the senator’s stepping stone to higher office, has exposed him as the worst kind of political opportunistâ€"a class of politician that we certainly don’t need any more representatives of.

I’m sure Duterte truly agonized about running, never mind if he sounded like he never seriously entertained the idea when he filed his certificate for reelection to the mayorship. And I’m convinced that whatever made him finally decide not to run (whether it was his family, his age, his health, his lack of funding or whatever else) is something that only Duterte will really know for certain.

As for me, all I know for sure is that the Davao City mayor could have been a real contender andâ€"if he had wonâ€"a true agent of change. Anyone with Duterte’s track record of effective, law-and-order governance and with his promise of refocusing economic growth to the neglected provinces will appeal to people who feel helpless against corruption and crime and left behind by the administrators of Imperial Manila.

I know that some people are still holding out the hope that Duterte will change his mind today, the last day of filing of certificates of candidacy, and declare for the presidency. But at this point, that would probably do him more harm than good, making him appear wishy-washy, something that, I’m told by his closest friends, is farthest from the truth.

Duterte and Cayetano


by Jojo Robles
October 16, 2015

The question is important: Now that Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte is not running for President, who will step up and make Senator Alan Peter Cayetano a foundling by adopting him?

But before that, let’s talk about Duterte, the little engine from Davao that couldn’t make it all the way to Malacañang. And yes, I know I predicted that the mayor would run, an idea that appealed to so many people who wanted to see Duterte take his brand of hands-on, no-nonsense governance to the biggest stage of allâ€"the presidential palace.

But as people close to the mayor have repeatedly told me (and the rest of the country, really), no one can force Duterte to do something he doesn’t want to do. And when Duterte declared yesterday that he would run for reelection instead of the presidency, he proved that he was not going to be stampeded into going for the highest office in the land, if he didn’t really want to do that.

Quote from: hubag bohol on October 15, 2015, 08:35:09 PM
Hmm, my kitty Whitey is also greater than the sum of her parts...

why did you leave the rest of him here?

chinese chicken or chinese cat?

Quote from: hubag bohol on October 15, 2015, 09:16:06 PM

dear hubag,

your friend there is not rubbing anyone. he's picking nits and lice, nitpicking if you may!

in the "world's largest democratic country"?

Comelec can also determine motu propio or on its own if someone who filed a COC is a nuisance candidate.


Presidential aspirant Rizalito David  Photo by Jansen Romero/Rappler

Section 69 of the Omnibus Election Code said that it could cancel the COC if the person who filed it has:

-no bona fide intention to run for office
-intent to make a mockery of the election process
-intent of confusing the voting public by the similarity of the names of the registered candidates

The Comelec can also declare independent candidates as nuisance if they cannot prove their capacity to independently wage a national campaign, such as the case during the 2013 elections.

The final list of candidates will be issued on December 10.


cnnphilippines.com/

Even though others questioned the psychological capacity of some of those who filed COCs, health â€" both physical and mental â€" are not included in the parameters that the Comelec looks into in deciding who the official candidates will be.

“Although health is a very definite issue for voters, a person [running for the presidency] in front of us doesn't have to meet any health requirements, That's not set forth in the Constitution,” Jimenez told CNN Philippines in a phone interview over Nightly News on Tuesday (October 13).

Under the Constitution, a person aspiring to be president has to comply with five criteria. You have to be:

-a natural-born citizen of the Philippines;
-a registered voter;
-able to read and write;
-at least forty years of age on the day of the election;
-and a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years immediately preceding such election


Presidential aspirant Sel Hope Kang

too bad i'm too far away from the comelec and the deadline is tomorrow; i'm changing my mind, like my good friend rody duterte...

i can spew fire like lucifer, fight like yoda, talk like kris, make the philippines safe from murderers and thieves like duterte by eliminating all suspects including senators and congressmen; why, i even come as azetbur the klingon and i can wrest back the the west philippine sea from xi jinping.  promise.

 
It is the ministerial duty of the agency to accept the COCs of those who want to file. Only after the filing will the deliberations on the aspiring candidates begin.

“Lahat ng Certificate of Candidacy na ifa-file, tatanggapin. Pero hindi lahat ng nag-file, magiging kandidato,” Jimenez explained on Twitter.

“If they are not accepted this time around and then they file it again, it will still have to go under the same hearing process… If later on our evaluation shows that for some reason or another, these people can now be treated seriously then they will, in fact, be treated seriously regardless of the fact that they are one time considered nuisance.”


Presidential aspirant Josephine Murillo  Photo by George Moya/Rappler

 
Some had out-of-this-world plans for the country, while others claimed that otherworldly beings were behind their presidential bid.

This led some to tag them as nuisance candidates and declare the current policy on COC applications as “out of control.”


Presidential aspirant Alfredo Tindugan

Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez, however, disagreed. Replying to a comment on Twitter, he said the current system is “robust and democratic.”

The anatomy of a nuisance candidate

By Mikas Matsuzawa, CNN Philippines
Thu, October 15, 2015


Some presidential aspirants were tagged as nuisance candidates by some netizens.

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) â€" Assessing the first day of the filing of certificates of candidacies (COCs), Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Andres Bautista said that it seemed like a lot of people want to be president.

On the first day, around 22 people filed their COCs for the presidency, followed by three for the vice president, and 16 for senator.

Some of those who filed caused a buzz on social media.


Presidential aspirant Archangel Lucifer

nuisance (noun)

1.  a person or thing that causes annoyance or bother
(as modifier): nuisance calls

2.  (law) something unauthorized that is obnoxious or injurious to the community at large ( public nuisance) or to an individual, esp in relation to his ownership or occupation of property (private nuisance)

3.  nuisance value, the usefulness of a person's or thing's capacity to cause difficulties or irritation

Word Origin

C15: via Old French from nuire to injure, from Latin nocÄ"re

-Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins

Word Origin and History for nuisance

noun, c.1400, "injury, hurt, harm," from Anglo-French nusaunce, Old French nuisance "harm, wrong, damage," from past participle stem of nuire "to harm," from Latin nocere "to hurt" (see noxious ). Sense has softened over time, to "anything obnoxious to a community" (bad smells, pests, eyesores), 1660s, then "source of annoyance, something personally disagreeable" (1831). Applied to persons from 1690s.

-Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper


dictionary.reference.com/

did i enjoy that link, loll. hahaha! haraw naay modaog nila! if ever, i wish that victor will look my way and make me cabinet secretary of the department of rubber stamps. (i'll gladly accept, as long as i rubber stamp people's foreheads.)

cnnphilippines.com/

 
Answer: Pig’s DNA test results revealed her to be a Chow Chow, Boxer, and American Staffordshire Terrier mix! But that doesn’t mean that that’s the ONLY breeds she has in her, in fact she probably also has some ancestry in a fairly large variety of breeds, not that it matters too much to her owner, Kim Dillenbeck who told AL.com “”To me, she is just 1 in a million. As much as I can see her potential in all these breeds, she is still just Pig.”

Were you surprised? What other breeds did you think might be in Pig’s DNA?

h/t to AL.com

All images via Joey Kennedy and Mark Almond

barkpost.com

 
Think you have it?

 
Pig is just going to check out this ice cream cone while she waits for you to figure it out.

 
Is this the face of an Akita? A Husky?

 
Okay here’s a pretty huge hint: check out that tongue!

 
Getting any ideas?

 
Alright, let’s start at the beginning, here’s Pig as an adorable puppy!

Greater Than The Sum Of Her Parts, Pig Is In A Breed Of Her Own



Marissa Rubenstein
12 months ago

There’s no question that humans have played the lead role in shaping the amazingly diverse variety of breeds we have today, but often times letting nature be more…well…natural, can be far more interesting. And cute. Like really really, ridiculously cute.

Just take a look at Pig, for example. Pig is an adorably unusual mixed breed pup with a short spine who’s DNA results were just recently announced. Channel your inner breed guessing powers and let’s see if you can figure out her breed! (Hint: There’s more than one answer!)

another showbiz gimmick?  what for, pataktak sa kuto ug kaspa?  really, our political gimmicks are wearying...

hahaha! ayaw na lang pag-presidente, please, kay tingali ug kinahanglan ka pang mag-boksidor una pareha ni pacquiao.

you may not be dokdoking here more often as you wish, but we know, as we know mt everest (with the famous "because it's there" quote) that always "you are there".  

the maldives may deserve mention in this list.


one lands at the island airport


takes a water taxi


or a water bus


enters the nearby island capital


city of male.

as for the famed resorts, well, one resort equals one island.

8. Barra Airport

Location â€" Scotland (the Hebridean island of Barra, to be more specific). This airport is the wackiest indeed. Why? Because the landings must be made only when the tide is out. Yep, you’ve heard it right. The plane lands straight on the beach.








http://brainberries.co/

7. Kansai International Airport

It’s not that easy to find a large open space to land in Japan. This is why the country spent $20 billion constructing the off-coast airport. This man-made island is so huge; it can be seen from space. It is built to withstand the devastating storms and earthquakes that are common in and around Japan.

6. Don Muang International

Don Muang International Airport in Thailand might seem quite ordinary at first sight, but once you take a closer look, you’ll notice that there is an 18 hole golf course in between the two runways. Crazy, huh?

5. Gibraltar International Airport

This one is totally crazy. We all know that a moving vehicle is not allowed near the airport runway. But at Gibraltar Airport, vehicles pass over the busy runway on regular basis. Why? Because the main road that connects the peninsula and the mainland passes straight over the airport runway. In order for planes to land safely, the road must be shut down and blocked while the planes land.

4. Ice Runway

It’s not exactly an airport…This is more like an isolated runway, located in Antarctica. Ice Runway serves as a landing zone for planes that bring food and supplies to over 1,000 scientists who live and work at McMurdo Station. The planes are usually large and heavy. That’s why during the summer, when the ice is too thin to support them, the residents of the station are forced to go without fresh fruits and vegetables and other essential supplies.

3. Congonhas Airport

This one is Brazil’s second busiest airport and located just a few miles from the busy city center. It looks awfully like your landing in Central Park in New York, don’t you think? Because of the airport’s close proximity to the city, it’s a real challenge for pilots to land a flight.

2. Agatti Airport

This unique airport, located in India, is the only airport in the world that is completely surrounded by water. Its runway is only 4,000ft long and is considered to be short and dangerous. Odd maybe because you land and then have to take a boat to your final destination. Have a nice vacation!

 
1. Denver International Airport

Denver International Airport, Denver, Colorado, USA, is the 15th busiest airport in the world by passenger volume (5th in the U.S.), and has been a topic of conspiracy talk since it opened. Rumor has it that it was built over some top secret underground base. Only the millions of prairie dogs that live in burrows around the airport know for sure! If you take a look at the runway shape, it looks curiously like a swastika (well, at least from above). There is also the strange artwork on the airport walls that have been described as disturbing and has come under much scrutiny.

The World's Strange Airports



Millions of people use airports every day. And let’s be honest, most folks don’t want to spend more time at the airport than they need to. Because why bother? They are all the same. When you’ve seen one, you’ve probably seen them all â€" right?

Not quite. While most of the airports are practically identical, there are some that would fascinate you with their unique qualities. Whether it’s because of size, physical location or building design, we’ve found 8 airports that are so wacky and bizarre that they require more than just a pass-through.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

To sleep, perchance to dream,
ay, there's the rub,

admirable sense of humor, that guy.

Quote from: islander on October 14, 2015, 05:05:35 PM
Chinese hypocrisyâ€"and arroganceâ€"is breathtaking. Early September, five Chinese warships sailed within 12 nautical miles of one of the Aleutians without seeking permission to do so, apparently taking the position that their transit constituted “innocent passage.” So Beijing believes it has the right to intrude into American territorial waters and the US does not have the right to sail international waters close to China’s reclaimed features.

and all because they think they have achieved economic might and, perhaps, also military might?  let's wait and see them fall and fail.

Yes, the US needs to sail close to China’s features in the Spratlys, even if Beijing gets upset, because Washington has to protect the global commons. More important, however, American policymakers should abandon the hope that aggressors will be tamed by rules, just because Americans think that would be nice.

Beijing just threw down a challenge to the rules-based international system. Washington needs to understand the implications.

Gordon G. Chang's blog
worldaffairsjournal.org/

Chinese hypocrisyâ€"and arroganceâ€"is breathtaking. Early September, five Chinese warships sailed within 12 nautical miles of one of the Aleutians without seeking permission to do so, apparently taking the position that their transit constituted “innocent passage.” So Beijing believes it has the right to intrude into American territorial waters and the US does not have the right to sail international waters close to China’s reclaimed features.



There are lessons for American policymakers here. The US has historically promoted a broad view of innocent passage as a means of defending freedom of navigation. Washington hoped that China would follow its example and similarly adopt an expansive view. That hope, by now, has been dashed.



Yet this is not just an issue of China disappointing America on rights to the high seas. Beijing’s blatant disregard of rules in this instance should prompt the rethinking of Washington’s long-term goal of trying to “enmesh” China into the international system by getting it to sign agreements. If Beijing does not think it is bound by obligations it has undertaken, then what is the point?

It’s not clear how those discussions went, but on Tuesday both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported that a Fonop will occur soon. The Times stated that US officials had briefed countries in the region of the plan to conduct such a patrol. “It’s just a matter of time when it happens,” a “US official” told the Journal.

Beijing, for its part, has been working overtime to prevent what it considers to be an incursion by the US Navy. In addition to Hua’s warning, the People’s Liberation Army has been adding its voice. Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported on Thursday that a “source close to the PLA” said that the Second Artillery, which is responsible for the country’s nuclear forces, could fire on an American ship should it conduct a freedom of navigation exercise.

The US, which has not ratified UNCLOS, takes the position that it has the right to sail near or fly over the reclamations of once-submerged features under customary law.

American admirals, the Navy Times reported Thursday, are now hopeful about obtaining permission from the Obama administration for the Fonops, a freedom of navigation exercise or operation. As the paper stated, “Navy officials believe approval of the mission is imminent.”

Approval was not imminent in late July when Politico reported that the administration was not granting approval. Then, it appeared White House officials wanted to wait until President Obama had an opportunity to talk about China’s island building with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, during the state visit last month.

In the Spratly chain, China has been dredging sand to transform shoals and reefsâ€"some of them submergedâ€"into artificial islands, now known as the “Great Wall of Sand.” Beijing claims those new islands are entitled to a 12-nautical-mile band of territorial water. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which China has ratified, and customary international law permit a state to claim such a band only with respect to features that were visible above water at high tide before reclamation.

Is a US-China Showdown in South China Sea Imminent?

Gordon G. Chang
13 October 2015

“We will never allow any country to violate China’s territorial waters and airspace in the Spratly Islands, in the name of protecting freedom of navigation and overflight,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying at Friday’s regular news briefing. “We urge the related parties not to take any provocative actions, and genuinely take a responsible stance on regional peace and stability.”



Hua was evidently reacting to a Navy Times report that the US Navy was planning to send a surface combatant within 12 nautical miles of a Chinese island in the South China Sea in a bid to preserve freedom of navigation for itself and others.

bullseye!  great mother.

Location:   Turin, Italy
Date taken:   1934
Photographer:   Alfred Eisenstaedt


mymothersrosary.blogspot.com/

a potential 'playgirls' member for the campaign period.
it's more fun in the philippines.

straight from the white house... hello from sunny.

Bo and Sunny play with White House staffer Brian Mosteller (Photo by Pete Souza)

(other websites claim it's POTUS. might as well take what sounds more official.)

and sunny came later as well...



A sister for first dog! Obamas welcome new puppy 'Sunny' to the White House, just like Bo

By FnF Desk | PUBLISHED: 20, Aug 2013

http://www.facenfacts.com/NewsDetails/41468/a-sister-for-first-dog!-obamas-welcome-new-puppy-sunny-to-the-white-house-just-like-bo.htm

Photo by Cliff Owen/AP