MikeLigalig.com

Why are civilians so attracted to war?

War is often regarded by observers as honorable and noble. It can be viewed as a contest between nations, a chance to compete and be declared the victor.

Does the American public support war?

Between 65 and 85 percent of the American public will support a military action when it begins. Vietnam had 64 percent support in 1965. As American casualties mount, support often decreases. The Korean and Vietnam Wars ended with support levels near 30 percent. World War II support levels never fell below 77 percent, despite the prolonged and damaging nature of the conflict. The Gulf War enjoyed similar levels of support.

Is war essentially male?

Worldwide, 97 percent of today's military personnel are male. This is thought to be a reflection of culture and biology. Fifteen percent (204,000) of American military personnel are female.

Can women fight as effectively as men do?

Yes. While fewer women are "natural killers," and women are on average smaller than men, there are many women who have the psychological makeup and the physical ability to fight. There are many men without either. Women have shown valor in combat. Dr. Mary Walker won the Medal of Honor during the Civil War.

How many wars are taking place right now?

At the beginning of 2003 there were 30 wars going on around the world. These included conflicts in Afghanistan, Algeria, Burundi, China, Colombia, the Congo, India, Indonesia, Israel, Iraq, Liberia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda.

Is there a genetic reason why we fight?

There is no single "war gene." Combinations of genes can predispose a person to violence. However, aggression is a product of biology and environment. In America, sources of aggressive dispositions include domestic violence, the portrayal of violence in the media, threats from enemies, and combat training.

How many people have died in war?

At least 108 million people were killed in wars in the twentieth century. Estimates for the total number killed in wars throughout all of human history range from 150 million to 1 billion. War has several other effects on population, including decreasing the birthrate by taking men away from their wives. The reduced birthrate during World War II is estimated to have caused a population deficit of more than 20 million people.

How many people around the world serve in the military?

The combined armed forces of the world have 21.3 million people. China has the world's largest, with 2.4 million. America is second with 1.4 million. India has 1.3 million, North Korea 1 million, and Russia 900,000. Of the world's 20 largest militaries, 14 are in developing nations.

FIRST CHAPTER

'What Every Person Should Know About War'

By CHRIS HEDGES
Published: July 6, 2003

What is a war?

War is defined as an active conflict that has claimed more than 1,000 lives.

Has the world ever been at peace?

Of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8 percent of recorded history.

For war to exist, nations or states must retain a sense of independence and detachment from other communities. Without this independence, there is no us-versus-them mentality. As long as there is differentiation between communities, there is the potential for conflict. Nations that perceive a threat from a foreign state may initiate war in an attempt to head off future conquest. Or a community might wage war in order to access resources that another community possesses. Ultimately, war requires that we identify ourselves as belonging to one group while simultaneously excluding other people.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/

The conflict was between the Sumerians and the neighboring Elamites, who lived in what is now Iran. We can't say that the battles between the two nations were part of the first war ever fought -- the earliest conflicts likely began 10,000 years ago in the late Paleolithic or early Neolithic periods, but we have no records from that time [source: Cioffi-Revilla]. Around 2700 B.C., the Sumerian king Enmebaragesi led soldiers against the Elamites and won, looting the nation in the process. It looks like the reason for the earliest war was that the Elamites were a potential threat to the Sumerians and they had resources the Sumerians wanted [source: HistoryNet].

Looking back to the cradle of civilization, we see that not everything was terribly civilized. In the land of Sumer, where modern day Iraq is now, there were several city-states. Each city-state was independent of the others, though throughout history they would occasionally create a united front against a common enemy.

But the city-states were prone to fighting each other. War was common in ancient Sumer. Techniques humans had learned to make tools were used to build weapons. Inventions like the wheel became important for designing vehicles of war such as chariots. The earliest records of war date around 2700 BC. The ancient Sumerians carved battle records onto stone tablets [source: The Origins of War].

That's not to suggest there were no conflicts among humans before civilization. It's likely that tribes fought one another or that internal struggles within a tribe ended with a physical confrontation. But while those struggles may have been violent in nature, they don't meet the definition of war.

Once we developed agriculture, humans were able to form larger communities. We were no longer restricted to living as small, mobile tribes. But building a community carried with it some dangers. It meant that people were producing resources -- resources that other people might want or need. Early civilizations had to fight off bands of raiders to protect their land. As these communities became better at repelling raiders, they began to develop the tools and techniques that would later serve the basis for warfare.

To answer the question, we first must define war. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, war is the "state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations." That definition helps us narrow down when humans invented war. If we're talking about states or nations, we must focus on early civilizations. Before civilization, all humans were tribal and at least somewhat nomadic. It was only after we developed agriculture and settled down that we could build the resources needed for war.

When and why did we invent war?

by Jonathan Strickland


Stone carvings like this one from a temple in India are records of man's warlike past.
© iStockphoto.com/AlanLagadu

Human history is filled with conflict. Some of that conflict takes place on a small level involving only a few people -- sometimes the battle takes place within a single person's mind. But other conflicts span regions and can stretch on for decades. Over the centuries, humans have described war as everything from a glorious struggle to a pointless, violent and inhuman activity. Have we always made war upon one another?

-DELETED-

sorry.  i'm just as surprised why i ended up with two of this.  war is in another thread.  my apologies.

well, no one assassinated him.  and if the the accounts of his villainy were true, he did spend quite a long time living with his conscience.

sa una addict ko (or mi, kay kami man duha ni banana republic) atong text twist.  purya.  we aimed for the one million score.  result?  wa miy tulog for one weekend, sabot mi nga magpulipuli ug tulog ug one hour, pukawon ang usa to continue the game, and so on.  pagka-monday, the banana wasn't able to go to work and my whole body ached.  wa ra tawon mi kaabot sa one million mark.  900 thousand kapin ra mi sa among pag-give up. 

i understand game addiction.  hapit ko mahulog sa gangplank sa una tungod kay sige kog duwa ug handheld video.  salamat nga nakalimot na ko sa ngan ato. 

Quote from: Lollapalooza on April 08, 2015, 01:28:36 PM
Oh Lord forgive me kung nanghimantay ugaling ko sa usa ka babayeng naka uyab lang ug poriner... wa nako tuyu-a nga nadungog gikan sa iyang baba nga nangayo siya P5,000.00 para lang pang shopping that day kauban sa iyang pren.. Mamahaw lang gani, mura na ug pawnshop (or christmas tree) ang lawas kay napuno ug dekorasyon, ang usa ka kamot Iphone6 ang gigunitan ang isa, tinidor haahaha... no wonder we are tagged as "gold digger"... pasalamat na lang ko kay di ko materialistic nga tao ug naa'y tarong nga work...  soweeeee Fr. Chic for I have sinned..

you're not alone, loll.  it's sad, embarrassing, terrible, horrific, dreadful, awful, appalling, horrifying, horrible, horrendous, atrocious, abominable, deplorable, egregious, abhorrent, frightful, shocking, hideous, ghastly, grim, dire, unspeakable, gruesome, monstrous, sickening, heinous, vile, serious, grave, godawful, grievous, excruciating, agonizing, unbearable, intolerable, unendurable, dreadful, awful, deplorable, atrocious, hopeless, worthless, useless, poor, pathetic, pitiful, lamentable, appalling, abysmal and what other synonyms can be produced by google... in the end, we wish we could wring their necks for staining our dignity as filipino women.

(it's not so good for travelers like me either, especially when i was younger, because i ran the risk of being mistaken for one of them, huhuhu.)

so, yes, forgive us fr chic, for feeling this way.

hala, mora diay tuod ug 574 kun duolon, loll.  maayo ni para sa mamustahay ug swertes tingali da...

hahaha!  as usual, i'm out of tech sync.  thanks, lol.  what a gem.  nakapabuwag ug mag-asawa?  arang gayod.

Quote from: hubag bohol on June 11, 2015, 09:06:45 PM



Kanay ungggoy...

true gyod.  daghanang unggoy nanan-aw uy.

wrong ka diyan.  he is a superhero.

aw, sure ko nga puro zero ang makit-an sa mga dagkog mata.

back to where he belongs?  sad.

curious.  unsa man na?  what gems are those and what are they for?

Demonetization is an important and necessary process to comply with the multiple currency system, according to the Reserve bank.

In 2008 the monthly inflation rate hit 3.5 million percent with an egg costing 50 billion Zimbabwean dollars. A loaf of bread then cost as much as 12 new cars could have cost 10 years before. Prices doubled every 25 hours, which gave Zimbabwe the second-worst hyperinflation in history, behind post-war Hungary. The same year, Zimbabwe printed its highest denomination banknote, at 100 trillion dollars it was only enough to buy a weekly bus ticket.

Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe gained momentum in 2000 when Robert Mugabe, who has been the country's President since 1987, changed his economic policy and implemented land reform. Mugabe granted farmland owned by white citizens to indigenous black Zimbabweans, who were uneducated and knew nothing about farming. As a result, Zimbabwe turned from an agriculture exporter into an importer, which resulted in 94 percent unemployment and hyperinflation.

http://rt.com/

Zimbabwe has been using the US dollar since 2009 when the use of the Zimbabwean dollar was abandoned. A multi-currency system has been in operation for the last six years, with the South African rand and US dollar in use since 2009 and the Chinese yuan, Australian dollar, Japanese yen and the Indian rupee joining the list of accepted currencies in 2014. Formally, the national currency was also in circulation although Zimbabwean dollars were marginally used, mostly as souvenirs for their gargantuan denominations.

"We need to safeguard the integrity of the multiple currency system or dollarization in Zimbabwe," John Mangudya, chief of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe was cited as saying by Africa Report.

"Demonetization is, therefore, critical for policy consistency and for enhancing consumer and business confidence,” he added.

Zimbabwe phases out local currency at 35 quadrillion to US$1

June 15, 2015

Reuters / Philimon Bulawayo

Zimbabwe has started retiring its almost worthless local currency in favor of the US dollar. Today, 35 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars are equal to US $1, as a result of hyperinflation which hit the country in 2009.

The demonetization process of the Zimbabwe dollar started on Monday and will run till September 30.

People with accounts of up to 175 quadrillion (175,000,000,000,000,000) Zimbabwean dollars will be paid $5. Those who preserved bills at home will receive a rate of 250 trillion to $1 for their 2008-issued notes and 250 to $1 for their 2009-issued notes.

1.00 ZWD (Zimbabwean Dollar)   =   0.00276319 USD (US Dollar)

ready, sing (the theme song of hubag):  "ikalima ko ikaw, nga bathala..."

Quote from: hubag bohol on June 16, 2015, 11:56:40 PM
Ang mga minjo na lang kaha ang i-recommend? Seguradong andam magpakasal ang mga kanahan...

kanyahay ra nga kalima na magpakasal si hubag.

Quote from: hubag bohol on June 16, 2015, 11:27:50 PM

and of course, i won't be surprised if what you showed is as small as those in carbon market in cebu...

Quote from: jjeeppeerrxx on June 13, 2015, 10:40:57 AM
Maajung buntag TUBAGBOHOL!

I am looking for a customer nga supplayan ug PORK / CHICKEN / BEEF LONGANISA here in Bohol. Barato lang ug lami nga templada basin gusto ninyu magpa supply ug LONGANISA. Naa sad kami Lumpia nga products, assure you nga lami ang templada, try first para walay mahay. Contact lang sa akoa PM..

yeheeey!  that's the spirit, jjeep!  bilib baya gyod kog entrepreneurs.  sayang di ko ka-order kay layo ko kaayo.  but i'll do my best to encourage any boholano i know who's based in bohol.  good luck!

si bugsay?  absent diay?

right on.  dak-on ang gagmay nga islands, hehe.

good luck, rey.  here's hoping you would continue posting as a free citizen of a free country.  the decision to invest or not is up to us, the readers.

571.  does it mean anything?  daot gyod hinoon kog mata...

gi-photoshop kaha na?  too good to be true...

mohuwat na lang ko ni batman.

ignorant stupidity is fine by me.

Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi

Quote from: islander on June 01, 2015, 10:52:10 PM
The third instance happened a year before the 7.2 magnitude quake in 2013 while he was sleeping in a rented house in  barangay San isidro, this city. Still at 3  o’clock dawn, he saw the Blessed Virgen Mary who asked him to “pray more and more as three major calamities are forthcoming, namely, a strong earthquake, a powerful typhoon and warned that a place will be experiencing fires falling from the skies.”

1)  7.2 magnitude earthquake of 15 october 2013
2)  typhoon yolanda (haiyan) of 02-11 November 2013
3)  what could these fires falling from the skies be?

RECOMMENDATIONS

The place and the narrations of the visionary needs ecclesiastical guidance and approval thus the parish priest has to know the details of the turn of events and informed the bishop of the Diocese of Talibon.  The place needs to be developed and perhaps make it a shrine of the Blessed Mother.

The basic ecclesiastical principle is anchored on the saying that “If it is from God, it will prosper in time, if not, it will end a natural death.”

http://boholchronicle.com.ph/

PARALLEL TO APPARITIONS

Fr. Lupot said the elements have parallelism to other apparitions with the visionary (Atuel) as the human agent. He described the visionary as  very ordinary and religious person. There was the message to pray the rosary and make a certain place “holy” for the Blessed Mother. The time when the visionary talks to the Blessed Mother at 3 o’clock dawn is the usual time for those given the grace to encounter her presence.

Fr. Lupot ventured on to say that Batongan Hill might be the “Simala of Bohol”.

Fr Lupot  exhorted the devotees to know the three kinds of “divine presence,” namely the spiritual presence, sacramental presence and the locomotive presence (apparitions). During the mass, he blessed the place while confirming that there was spiritual and sacramental presence of the Blessed Mother at the site.

“Batongay Hill is now a holy place,” Fr. Lupot said while telling the devotees present that (unofficially) the place is a shrine of Mama Mary.

The messages received  by the visionary during the mass: (1) Mama Mary wants her crown to be pure gold, meaning the Blessed Mother wants the place to given dignity as a holy place for prayer and (2) Queenship of the Blessed Mother wanting that her son, Jesus Christ  should rule in the province and in each of the Boholano families.

PRESENCE FELT

The presence of the Blessed Mother was felt much by many who attended the Holy Mass at Batongay Hill last May 10 under the scorching heat of the sun.

In his homily, Fr. Lupot explained why he obligated himself to officiate that first mass at Batongay Hill, the exact place where the Blessed Mother wanted people to gather. He said in the message through the visionary, it was very clear that she will be at Batongay Hill on May 10, 10am.

Two points raised in Fr. Lupot’s homily: that it was the Blessed Mother who invited the attendees to gather in the hill that sunny Sunday morning and that the presence of the Blessed Mother was intensely felt as there were divine gestures manifested during the mass. After the mass, he was told by some attendees that they could not understand as tears kept on flowing from their eyes and they felt much joy and the graces of forgiveness for one’s sinfulness.

The visionary asked the Blessed Mother how could he convince people to go to Batongay . Likewise, he asked the Blessed Mother that if indeed it was her talking, she should appear again later at daybreak when he is no longer asleep. And indeed, the visionary saw the Blessed Mother at 6 in the morning that same day.  And the same message was uttered “she will be in Batongay  on May  10, 2015, 10:00am.”  After saying the message to request people to go to the hill, the Blessed Mother disappeared.

The fifth instance was early January this year when the Blessed Mother reminded Atuel to inform the people of that May 10 invitation. The visionary, this time, asked for an apology for not spreading the May 10 invitation of the Blessed Mother.

The third instance happened a year before the 7.2 magnitude quake in 2013 while he was sleeping in a rented house in  barangay San isidro, this city. Still at 3  o’clock dawn, he saw the Blessed Virgen Mary who asked him to “pray more and more as three major calamities are forthcoming, namely, a strong earthquake, a powerful typhoon and warned that a place will be experiencing fires falling from the skies.”

In that instance, Mama Mary requested to hold 10 nights of praying the rosary throughout the barangay in Ubay.  He fulfilled the holding of the Holy Rosary for 10 successive nights with the help of his neighbors in barangay Bay-ang, Ubay town.

The fourth instance happened on July 14, 2014  where the Blessed Mother requested him to go to Batongay Cave on May 10, 2015 and bring people to that place because “she will be there.” He asked why it should be in that abandoned project which he used to landscape years before.

APPEARANCES & MESSAGES

The first appearance of the Blessed Mother to the visionary wayback in 2005 brought no message except that he saw her floating in a snowy clouds. He described Mama Mary as “beautiful, beyond compare.”

The second instance happened still at 3 o’clock dawn. This time, Mama Mary had “something” given to the visionary but he was not able to get it because of the distance between them.

Few years later, the visionary became a landscaper. In Buenavista town where he landscaped the town hall, while segregating the bermuda grass, he saw a rosary bead, filled with mud. He then recalled that it was the thing which the Blessed Mother gave him. Since the time he got hold of the rosary beads, the visionary encountered several trials and tribulations in his life. According to Atuel, he survived all the trials because of his constant praying of the Rosary.

Fr. Lupot after conducting a detailed interview with Atuel decided not just to join the people up the hill last May 10, but officiated a Holy Mass at the foot of the Blessed Mother’s statue placed in a well appointed elevated portion in a rocky portion of the hill. Fr Lupot informed Rev. Fr. Joe Marie Gabas, parish priest of barangay Sto, Tomas, Trinidad town about the clear and consistent message that she wants people to gather at Batongay Hill last May 10. The mass was attended by about 200 barangay residents together with a few friends of the visionary including Trinidad Mayor Baby Cajes and former Rep. Roberto Cajes who prepared the place for the Holy Mass

Batongay Hill, during the past two years , has been visited by pilgrims who wish to do their Stations of the Cross during Good Fridays. Trinidad Mayor Cajes has developed the place into a prayer garden. A concreted pathway with some 300 steps brought the devotees to the top of the hill where the Blessed Mother’s statue is prominently placed , adorned with flowers and ferns.  The place where the mass was officiated is overlooking the town with a nice view of the horizon of the mountains and the Cebu sea a little further.

Since that first “appearance,” Atuel kept the messages just to himself not until the last when the Blessed Mother was specific on the time and place where people should converge as she wants her presence to be felt. In fact, he was asked on why he was ashamed to inform people of what she requested of converging them on top of the hill.

It was at this juncture that Atuel decided to blast through text messages the invitation to be at the Batongay Hill last May 10 at  (10 in the morning) which was three days before the feast Our Lady of Fatima.

Atuel, one day, decided to narrate Mama Mary’s series of appearances to Rev. Fr, Julian Lupot who took time to document the the supposedly “personal encounters” between the visionary and the Blessed Mother.

Landscaper gets messages from Blessed Mother

May 24, 2015
Bohol Chronicle


VISIONARY. Ruel Atuel, 29, shares the messages he has been receiving from the Blessed Mother during a Holy Mass officiated on top of Batongay Hill in barangay Sto. Tomas, Trinidad town last May 10.

A lowly resident of barangay Bay-ang, Ubay town who is now a landscaper in his own right,  broke  his silence regarding receiving messages from the Blessed Virgen Mary, since he was still 19 years old or some 10 years ago.

The 29-year old Ruel Atuel had five “personal encounters” with the Blessed Mother, usually at 3 o’clock dawn inside his room.  The most recent happened last January this year when he knelt to the ground and asked for an apology for not heeding to her request to bring people to Batongay Hill, in  secluded interior barangay of Sto. Tomas in Trinidad town.

Modern Recreations

If you would like to check out a modern production of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Aquarian Tabernacle Church uses the scant knowledge of the mysteries to recreate the known rituals every year around Easter during their Spring Mysteries Festival at the Fort Flagler State Park in Washington State. The ceremonies are open to anyone and provide a rare insight to one of the most popular societies of ancient Greece and Rome.

more at http://io9.com/5883394/the-eleusinian-mysteries-the-1-fraternity-in-greco-roman-society#sthash.DB5VcEgx.dpuf

The end of the 2,000 year celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries

Like many mystery cults of the time, the influx of influx of Christianity and Christian emperors of Rome led to the downfall of the Eleusinian rituals. Sarmatians, a group from the Eastern Balkans, robbed the Temple of Demeter on Naxos Island in the second century A.D. In 170 A.D., Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, author of The Meditations and portrayed by Richard Harris (the first Dumbledore) in Ridley Scott's Gladiator, repaired the temple. Emperor Theodosisus I, best known for the removal of the traditional state religion of Rome in 380 A.D. and replacing it with Catholicism, destroyed the remnants of the Eleusinian temples between 392 and 395 A.D.

excerpts from The Psychedelic Cult That Thrived For Nearly 2000 Years
by Keith Veronese
http://io9.com/5883394/the-eleusinian-mysteries-the-1-fraternity-in-greco-roman-society

The Greatest Mystery and a psychedelic twist

The most important ritual for those involved in the Eleusinian Mysteries involved a ten day journey to Eleusis and a fast broken by drinking kykeon. The administration of kykeon, a peasant drink consisting of barley and the common cooking herb pennyroyal, is a subject of controversy for modern historians, as the kykeon served near the end of the journey likely contained a psychoactive ingredient.



Ergot, a parasite that grows on barley, emits ergometrine and d-lysergic acid amide, a chemical precursor to LSD that exhibits similar psychedelic effects and a DEA schedule III drug in the United States. After ingesting the kykeon, the participant enters the final portion of the journey, wherein the most secret aspects of the mystery are revealed, with many experiencing visions pertaining to the possibility of eternal life. The influence of mind altering drugs is believed to bolster the individual's reaction to the final step and help the Eleusinian Mysteries survive for nearly two thousand years against a plethora of other mystery cults and the rise of Christianity in Rome.

Quote from: islander on May 31, 2015, 07:32:57 PM
The doctor said the disease could be prevented if a pet owner washes his hands after playing with cats and prevent cats from licking open wounds.

just those, please.  that easy, really.

She said doctors were puzzled about what caused her blindness until she told them about her pet cat.

Walters was diagnosed with “cat scratch disease,” Dr. Kris Brickman of the University of Toledo’s College of Medicine and Life Sciences told local television network WTOL. The disease is contracted by humans when a cat passes a bacteria called Bartonella henselae through saliva or fur.

About 40 percent of cats carry the bacteria which can also cause liver problems and meningitis, Brackman said.

According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the symptoms of cat scratch disease include fever, enlarged, tender lymph nodes and a pustule in the affected area.

The doctor said the disease could be prevented if a pet owner washes his hands after playing with cats and prevent cats from licking open wounds.

For Walters, she wants her experience to warn cat owners of dangers posed by their pets.

“It’s real important. You don’t want to lose your eye sight,” she said. AJH

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/

Woman goes blind after cat licked herâ€"report

INQUIRER.net 2:19 PM | Sunday, May 31st, 2015


AP FILE PHOTO

Kittens may be cute but they can also be dangerous.

A woman from Ohio claimed that she went blind in one eye after her cat licked her.

In a report from CNN, Janese Walters said that she only thought that she had pink eye.

“I woke up one day and I couldn’t see out of my left eye. I looked in the mirror and I thought I had pink eye or something,” Walters said.

due for repair, bai hubs.  nadoble man imong m sa img...

kahilakon ko.  di lang ko kahibawo mohimo ug crying emoticon.

mas bilib ko kun si kanye west na ang mababaye...

Bruce Jenner the young boy


Bruce Jenner the Olympian


Bruce Jenner the woman wipes away a tear

http://www.mirror.co.uk/

Kim Kardashian has been really supportive of her stepdad Bruce

The new pictures of Bruce with his platinum locks is the first time that Bruce was seen out since April 30th, but it's reportedly because of the TV show.

“Bruce is officially, and for all legal purposes, considered a woman,” the source claimed.

“Bruce’s kids have never seen him so happy. They just wish he would publicly start living as a woman, but contractually, he has to keep it under wraps until the docuseries premieres.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/

Bruce Jenner shows Diane Sawyer his wardrobe in The Interview

Bruce, who was open about undergoing his gender reassignment will be shooting his own documentary about his transition.

“The surgery was more than eight hours long,” the source claimed.

“In the immediate aftermath, Bruce thought he had a urinary tract infection, but it was simply the pain from the procedure.”

Looks like Bruce is finally being able to let his hair down.

Meanwhile, Radar has reported that Bruce underwent his surgery "over three weeks ago".

“The procedure involved reshaping Bruce’s male genitalia into that of a woman. He was very happy with the results, but didn’t realize how grueling the recovery would be," the website reports.

Do blondes have more fun? Bruce is about to find out

"I think Bruce is afraid to let us down. We want to understand his struggle. We want to learn about it, relate to it in some way," she explained.

"I think what hurts us when we hear something is changing and happening and we don't know about it. We want to be in the loop."

In the emotional and groundbreaking sit-down special with Diane Sawyer, Bruce said: “Yes, for all intents and purposes, I am a woman.”

“My whole life has been getting me ready for this,” he said in the interview, which was filmed in February in New York and Los Angeles.

Bruce Jenner was seen with lighter locks on Sunday

Bruce’s step-daughter Kim Kardashian was recently filmed going through Bruce’s new wardrobe picking out the items that she liked even given him advice on how to be “chicer”.

During the Keeping Up With The Kardashians: About Bruce special, the former Olympian admits he’d stolen one of her outfits in the past.

Mother-of-one Kim, who was seen visiting her stepdad Bruce with husband Kanye West recently, has spoken candidly about how the family is dealing with Bruce's transition.

First pictures of blonde Bruce Jenner: Star finally lets his hair down 'after FULL sex change'

26 MAY 2015
BY CLAIRE RUTTER

The former Olympian was pictured taking a drive on Memorial Day weekend with his new style



Bruce Jenner appears to have dyed his hair blonde after announcing that he is undergoing a sex change to become a woman, which has now allegedly taken place.

It seems like he wants to really follow his step-daughters, Kim and Khloe â€" who have recently tried lighter locks â€" as he was seen with platinum locks as he sat shotgun in a car.

In the past year Bruce has been pictured with bright pink nail polish, and spoke to Diane Sawyer about his female wardrobe, even having dinner with the chat show host off-camera all dressed-up.

Why the name El Niño?

El Niños were originally recognized by fisherman off the coast of South America as the appearance of unusually warm water in the Pacific ocean, occurring near the beginning of the year. El Niño means The Little One in Spanish. This name was used for the tendency of the phenomenon to arrive around Christmas.

www.pmel.noaa.gov/

Why is one side of the Pacific warming faster than the other?

As the ocean gets hotter it evaporates more, which in turn cools it down slightly â€" just as sweating cools down a hot person. This is called evaporative cooling, and its effectiveness increases with temperature. Adding one degree of warming to both sides of the ocean will result in more evaporative cooling on the warmer western side, effectively dampening the warming there.

"If the mean temperature in the eastern Pacific is 22 then add one degree and it becomes 23. In the western Pacific the temperature is 29, add one degree and it becomes 30 degrees â€" at 30 degrees the evaporation is a lot bigger than if it were 23."

So the eastern side of the Pacific is warming at a faster pace because it was colder to start with.


Dr Cai Wenju is a senior principal research scientist at CSIRO's Wealth from Oceans Flagship and leads research that is using climate change predictions to maximise agricultural, urban and ecological water use opportunities. He was interviewed by Kylie Andrews.

http://www.abc.net.au/

A positive Indian Ocean dipole often occurs with an El Niño, which can magnify the impact, although they can also occur independently.

"In 1997 we had an Indian Ocean dipole in November and in January '98 we had the biggest El Niño," says Cai.

"But there are some years when they're not related, for example in [the southern hemisphere] summer in 2007/8 we actually had La Nina years but the drought continued because we had an Indian Ocean dipole."

Unfortunately, the frequency of positive Indian Ocean dipoles is likely to triple under climate change.

http://www.abc.net.au/

Another important factor in understanding the severity of an El Niño in Australia is the Indian Ocean dipole, a measure of sea surface temperature difference in the Indian Ocean.

The Indian Ocean dipole, in its positive phase, features cooler than usual ocean temperatures in the eastern Indian Ocean. This results in reduced rainfall in southern Australia and south eastern Australia â€" and subsequently drought and bushfires.

"Our bushfires are actually preconditioned by the Indian Ocean dipole, if there is an Indian Ocean dipole then the bushfire season will be more severe," says Cai.

Frequency and severity

Scientists now have a very good idea of how El Niño will be affected by climate change, says Cai, and it's not looking great.

"Under climate change the frequency of extreme El Niño events will double â€" to one every ten years".

The reason behind this is that the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean â€" which is normally cooler than the west â€" is warming exceptionally fast, making it more likely that El Niños will develop.

"And that allowed us to put that information into our models to predict what is coming up in the coming months. And so the El Niño understanding of the ocean really started in the early 80s after that big El Niño."

Unfortunately, the 70 moorings or buoys that make up the ocean monitoring system are in jeopardy.



"Around four to five years ago when the US economy went downhill they decommissioned the ship that goes to service the buoys, so now the buoys are returning data at around 40 per cent. And that really is a pity because that system really revolutionised our understanding of ENSO science," says Cai.

This will make it harder to predict coming El Niños as other existing systems are not as good. However, the US has committed to build the buoys up again to a data returning rate of more than 80 per cent, says Cai.

During an El Niño the SOI is negative because Tahiti has a lower air pressure than Darwin, and will be wetter, while Australia in the western Pacific will have a higher air pressure and be drier.

Scientists were aware of the SOI in the 1950s but the El Niño Southern Oscillation theory â€" ENSO â€"really developed following the implementation of an ocean monitoring system after the 1982 El Niño.

"The US Congress started to invest quite a lot of money putting moorings around the equatorial Pacific measuring temperature from the surface to 500 metres," says Cai.

What's happening now?

Current indications are that we are heading towards an El Niño later in 2014 but this won't be confirmed for another couple of months.

"At the moment we're seeing the development of westerly wind and warmer temperatures in the equatorial western pacific and so that's why scientists are predicting an El Niño in the upcoming months," says Cai.

In addition to ocean temperatures and wind directions, scientists also monitor an atmospheric indicator called the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) â€" which is defined as the air pressure at Tahiti minus the air pressure at Darwin, and is often reported on the news.

"An accumulation of a number of such events would then lead to a mean westerly wind developing, weakening the temperature gradient, in turn generating bigger westerly winds and a positive feedback," says Cai.

There are numerous other complex factors which come into play as well. For example, a westerly wind will suppress the Humboldt current, which runs up the west coast of Peru and Chile and normally brings an upwelling of cold water from the ocean's sub-surface to the surface.

Around this stage a tipping point is reached and the interplay between the oceans and atmosphere shifts into a different prevailing pattern, and an El Niño has formed.

During an El Niño the temperature gradient is reduced, and the water in the eastern Pacific is warmer than normal.

But what causes an El Niño to start "is the subject of debate," says Cai.

"One of the scenarios is that a little bit of weakening in the easterly wind would make the warm water flow to the east, and once it flows to the east then the temperature gradient across the Pacific changes."

The wind may return to a normal pattern, but the ocean has a longer memory and is slower to recover. And before the ocean recovers, another weather event may occur that changes the wind again.

What causes an El Niño?

Typically, an El Niño develops around May/June, strengthens through September/October and November to peak over December/January, then starts to decay in late February with weather conditions returning to normal around March.

The shift from normal â€" or neutral â€" conditions to an El Niño (or its opposite â€" La Niña) is governed by a complex combination of atmospheric and oceanic events.

In normal conditions, an easterly trade wind blows from the Americas across the Pacific Ocean storing heat in the western Pacific. This sets up a temperature gradient â€" or thermocline â€" across the ocean with the eastern Pacific significantly colder than the western Pacific. It also creates what we consider to be normal climatic conditions â€" a rain band in the western Pacific, bringing rainfall to eastern Australia.

El Niño also results in a hotter average temperature for the whole planet by about 0.1 to 0.2 degrees, because the associated change in winds lead to the release of heat from the ocean to the atmosphere.

The two strongest El Niños that we know of were in 1982-83 and 1997-98. Dubbed 'super El Niños', both these events had significant global impacts.



"In 1982-83, Australia suffered one of the biggest droughts and we had the Ash Wednesday bushfires and Melbourne was covered by the dust storm," says Cai.

"In 1997, over 23,000 people were killed due to extreme events, droughts, floods, cyclones."



The 1982 El Niño caught countries around the Pacific completely unaware and prompted data gathering and research that lead to our current understanding of El Niño, says Cai.

What is El Niño and why does it matter?


El Niño in Australia means hot sunny weather and drought. (Source: Kathryn_Thomas/iStockPhoto)

What is El Niño and why does it have so much influence over our weather?

El Niño is an ocean and atmospheric phenomenon that has a significant impact on our planet's weather.

While an El Niño event influences the whole world, the main effect is on the Pacific area, especially Australia, Indonesia and south-west America.

"During El Niño we have the droughts in western Pacific counties, like Indonesia and Australia," says Dr Wenju Cai, a senior principal research scientist at CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship.

"But in other places â€" like Ecuador and Peru â€" these normally dry areas suddenly get a lot of rain. In the US, in California they experience flooding during El Niño events."

El Niño: The Philippines places eight provinces under state of calamity due to drought

By Shirley Escalante in Manila, staff
26 May 2015


PHOTO: Farmers say forty per cent of their crops have been affected by the drought. (Reuters: Romeo Ranoco)

The Philippines has placed eight provinces under a state of calamity due to a drought caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon.

The central Philippines province of Cebu is the latest addition to the list of areas which have been severely impacted by El Niño.

A state of emergency allows its officials to use five per cent of more than $US2 million in local emergency funds to compensate for the losses of farmers.

Meteorologists say more than 50 provinces were beginning to suffer from the effects of the El Niño phenomenon.

They said the onset of the rainy season next month may not alleviate the impact of the drought.

Scientists at Australia's weather bureau this month officially declared a major El Niño event due to an increase in sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean.

It is likely to bring hotter temperatures and lower rainfall to much of eastern Australia.

http://www.abc.net.au/

what happened?  gikagid?

William James
Philosopher

William James (January 11, 1842 â€" August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist who was also trained as a physician. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth century and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the United States has ever produced, while others have labelled him the "Father of American psychology". (wikipedia)

The programme for the opposition should, it seems to me, be radical. The infamy and iniquity of a war of conquest must stop. A "protectorate," of course, if they will have it, though after this they would probably rather
welcome any European Power; and as regards the inner state of the island, freedom, "fit" or "unfit;" that is, home rule without humbugging phrases, and whatever anarchy may go with it until the Filipinos learn from each other, not from us, how to govern themselves. Mr. Adams's programme -- which anyone may have by writing to Mr. Erving Winslow, Anti-Imperialist League, Washington, D.C. -- seems to contain the only hopeful key to the situation. Until the opposition newspapers seriously begin, and the mass meetings are held, let every American who still wishes his country to possess its ancient soul -- soul a thousand times more dear than ever, now that it seems in danger of perdition -- do what little he can in the way of open speech and writing, and above all let him give his representatives and senators in Washington a positive piece of his mind.

http://www.uky.edu/

The impotence of the private individual, with imperialism under full headway as it is, is deplorable indeed. But every American has a voice or a pen, and may use it. So, impelled by my own sense of duty, I write these present words. One by one we shall creep from cover, and the opposition will organize itself. If the Filipinos hold out long enough, there is a good chance (the canting game being already pretty well played out, and the piracy having to show itself henceforward naked) of the older American beliefs and sentiments coming to their rights again, and of the Administration being terrified into a conciliatory policy towards the native government.

Shall it not in so far forth be execrated by ourselves? Shall the unsophisticated verdict upon its hideousness which the plain moral sense pronounces avail nothing to stem the torrent of mere empty "bigness" in our destiny, before which it is said we must all knock under, swallowing our higher sentiments with a gulp? The issue is perfectly plain at last. We are cold-bloodedly, wantonly and abominably destroying the soul of a people who never did us an atom of harm in their lives. It is bald, brutal piracy, impossible to dish up any longer in the cold pot-grease of President McKinley's cant at the recent Boston banquet -- surely as shamefully evasive a speech, considering the right of the public to know definite facts, as can often have fallen even from a professional politician's lips. The worst of our imperialists is that they do not themselves know where sincerity ends and insincerity begins. Their state of consciousness is so new, so mixed of primitively human passions and, in political circles, of calculations that are anything but primitively human; so at variance, moreover, with their former mental habits -- and so empty of definite data and contents; that they face various ways at once, and their portraits should be taken with a squint. One reads the President's speech with a strange feeling -- as if the very words were squinting on the page.

Could there be a more damning indictment of that whole bloated idol termed "modern civilization" than this amounts to? Civilization is, then, the big, hollow, resounding, corrupting, sophisticating, confusing torrent of mere
brutal momentum and irrationality that brings forth fruits like this! It is safe to say that one Christian missionary, whether primitive, Protestant or Catholic, of the original missionary type, one Buddhist or Mohammedan of a
genuine saintly sort, one ethical reformer or philanthropist, or one disciple of Tolstoi would do more real good in these islands than our whole army and navy can possibly effect with our whole civilization at their back. He could build up realities, in however small a degree; we can only destroy the inner realities; and indeed destroy in a year more of them than a generation can make good.

It is by their moral fruits exclusively that these benighted brown people, "half-devil and half-child" as they are, are condemned to judge a civilization. Ours is already execrated by them forever for its hideous fruits.

It is horrible, simply horrible. Surely there cannot be many born and bred Americans who, when they look at the bare fact of what we are doing, the fact taken all by itself, do not feel this, and do not blush with burning shame at the unspeakable meanness and ignominy of the trick?

Why, then, do we go on? First, the war fever; and then the pride which always refuses to back down when under fire. But these are passions that interfere with the reasonable settlement of any affair; and in this affair we have to deal with a factor altogether peculiar with our belief, namely, in a national destiny which must be "big" at any cost, and which for some inscrutable reason it has become infamous for us to disbelieve in or refuse. We are to be missionaries of civilization, and to bear the white man's burden, painful as it often is. We must sow our ideals, plant our order, impose our God. The individual lives are nothing. Our duty and our destiny call, and civilization must go on.

And what did our Administration do? So far as the facts have leaked out, it issued instructions to the commanders on the ground simply to freeze Aguinaldo out, as a dangerous rival with whom all compromising entanglement was sedulously to be avoided by the great Yankee business concern. We were not to "recognize" him, we were to deny him all account of our intentions; and in general to refuse any account of our intentions to anybody, except to declare in abstract terms their "benevolence," until the inhabitants, without a pledge of any sort from US, should turn over their country into our hands. Our President's bouffe-proclamation was the only thing vouchsafed:

"We are here for your own good; therefore unconditionally surrender to our tender mercies, or we'll blow you into kingdom come."

What was only vaguely apprehended is now clear with a definiteness that is startling indeed. Here was a people towards whom we felt no ill-will, against whom we had not even a slanderous rumor to bring; a people for
whose tenacious struggle against their Spanish oppressors we have for years past spoken (so far as we spoke of them at all) with nothing but admiration and sympathy. Here was a leader who, as the Spanish lies about him, on which we were fed so long, drop off, and as the truth gets more and more known, appears as an exceptionally fine specimen of the patriot and national hero; not only daring, but honest; not only a fighter, but a governor and organizer of extraordinary power. Here were the precious beginnings of an indigenous national life, with which, if we had any responsibilities to these islands at all, it was our first duty to have squared ourselves. Aguinaldo's movement was, and evidently deserved to be, an ideal popular movement, which as far as it had had time to exist was showing itself "fit" to survive and likely to become a healthy piece of national self-development. It was all we had to build on, at any rate, so far -- if we had any desire not to succeed to the Spaniards' inheritance of native execration.

But since then, Executive and all, we have been swept away by the overmastering flood. And now what it has swept us into is an adventure that in sober seriousness and definite English speech must be described as literally piratical. Our treatment of the Aguinaldo movement at Manila and at Iloilo is piracy positive and absolute, and the American people appear as pirates pure and simple, as day by day the real facts of the situation are coming to the light.

The Philippine Tangle

by William James
Boston Evening Transcript (March 1, 1899)

An observer who should judge solely by the sort of evidence which the newspapers present might easily suppose that the American people felt little concern about the performances of our Government in the Philippine Islands, and were practically indifferent to their moral aspects. The cannon of our gunboats at Manila and the ratification of the treaty have sent even the most vehement anti-imperialist journals temporarily to cover, and the bugbear of copperheadism has reduced the freest tongues for a while to silence. The excitement of battle, this time as always, has produced its cowing and disorganizing effect upon the opposition.

Mark Twain Home, An Anti-Imperialist, New York Herald [New York, 10/15/1900]

I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific. It seemed tiresome and tame for it to content itself with the Rockies. Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? And I thought it would be a real good thing to do.

I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves.

But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.

We have also pledged the power of this country to maintain and protect the abominable system established in the Philippines by the Friars.

It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.

Source: From Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War, Jim Zwick, ed., (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992).

http://www.historywiz.com/

Mark Twain Home, New York Tribune [New York, 10/15/1900]

Once I was not anti-imperialist. I thought that the rescue of those islands from the government under which they had suffered for three hundred years was a good business for us to be in. But I had not studied the Paris Treaty. When I found that it made us responsible for the protection of the friars and their property I changed my mind.