I have an idea for a new thread...

[small h]

David received a parrot for his birthday. The parrot was fully grown with a bad attitude and worse vocabulary. Every other word was an obscenity. Those that weren't expletives, were to say the least, rude. David tried hard to change the bird's attitude and was constantly saying polite words, playing soft music, anything he could think of. Nothing worked. He yelled at the bird and the bird yelled back. He shocked the bird and the bird just got more angry and more rude. Finally, in a moment of desperation, David put the bird in the freezer, just for a few moments. He heard the bird squawk and kick and scream-then suddenly, there was quiet.

 

David was frightened that he might have hurt the bird and quickly opened the freezer door. The parrot calmly stepped out and said "I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I'll endeavour at once to correct my behaviour. I really am truly sorry and beg your forgiveness." David was astonished at the bird's change in attitude and was about to ask what had made such a dramatic change when the parrot continued, "May I ask what did the chicken do?"

 

 

[small h]

[Stretch]

exotic beer, foreign country - I think i will give that an awesome rating

 

[TNT1]

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/munster/views/xlabyrinthcrete1600.jpg

[TNT1]

Our attitudes influence our behavior. Michelangelo believed he was the greatest artist in the world and could create masterpieces using any medium. His rivals persuaded Junius II to hire him to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, because they knew Michelangelo had rarely used color and had never painted in fresco. They were sure he would turn down the commission due to his inexperience. They planned to use his refusal as proof of his lack of talent. If he did accept it, they were convinced the result would be clownish and planned to use the result to point out his inadequacies to the art world.

 

Michelangelo accepted the commission. Because he had the attitude of a great artist, his behavior followed. Going through the motions and practicing with colors and painting in fresco, endlessly, he became an expert in the technique. He executed the frescos in great discomfort, having to work with his face looking upwards, which impaired his sight so badly that he could not read save with his head turned backwards for months. By acting upon his belief that he could create anything, he created the masterpiece that established him as the artist of the age

[TNT1]

And it's also true that our behavior influences our attitudes. Tibetan monks say their prayers by whirling their prayer wheels on which their prayers are inscribed. The whirling wheels spin the prayers into divine space. Sometimes, a monk will keep a dozen or so prayer wheels rotating like some juggling act in which whirling plates are balanced on top of long thin sticks.

 

Many novice monks are not that all emotionally or spiritually involved at first. It may be that the novice is thinking about his family, his doubts about a religious vocation or something else while he is going through the motions of spinning his prayer wheel. When the novice adopts the pose of a monk and makes it obvious to themselves and others by playing a role, their brain will soon follow the role they are playing. It is not enough for the novice to have the intention of becoming a monk: the novice must act like a monk and rotate the prayer wheels. If one has the intention of becoming a monk and goes through the motions of acting like a monk, one will become a monk.

[TNT1]

The second time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to feel so relieved. When you get your heart broken for the first time, you can’t imagine loving someone else again or having someone else love you. You worry about your ex finding love before you do, you worry about being damaged goods. And then it happens. Someone else loves you and you can sleep well at night.

 

The second time you fall in love with someone, it’s going to feel different. The first time felt like a dream almost. You were untouched, untainted by anyone. You accepted love with wide open arms and desperation. “Love me, love me, love me!” So you did. And then it fell apart and left you shocked to the core. You realized that people could be cruel and break your heart. You realized that people could stop meaning the sweet things they said to you just yesterday. So when you go into it again, you’re going to keep in mind everything that you’ve learned. You’re going to say, “Love me, love me, love me…until you don’t. In which case, I would like some advance warning. Thanks!”

 

The second time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to compare it to your first love. That’s okay. That’s natural. You’re going to be studying the new love with judgement and wariness. “My ex never liked broccoli. Why the hell does this one eat so much broccoli?!” Discovering that you have the ability to love multiple people who are different and feel different is initially very jarring. Loving an unfamiliar body will leave you disoriented and in dire need of a map. That’s okay too. That’s to be expected. Just ask the new love for directions.

 

The second time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to suffer from a bout of amnesia. You’re going to poke and prod at your lover’s body and be like, “Wait, how do I do this again? How do I love you? I think it starts with us having a moment together in some coffee shop, right?” It’s going to feel scary at first. Falling in love is sort of like riding a bike though. You never really forget.

 

The second time you fall in love with someone, you’ll be a more sane person. Your first love is when you get all of your insanity out. You behave like an insane monster because your mind is freaking out about all these new powerful feelings. By the second time, however, you have an idea of what works and what doesn’t. It’s by no means perfect. The insanity will make a cameo at some point. “Peek a boo. I’m here! Hope you didn’t forget about me!” But you can usually shoo it away after awhile.

 

The second time you fall in love with someone, you will hopefully have better sex. Do not quote me on this.

 

The second time you fall in love with someone will still be exciting and you might even talk about moving in together or marriage. It will feel more “adult.” You have no idea what adult love actually is but you think it involves making coffee for each other in the morning and maybe even getting a dog. “This is my dog, Xan. I got him with the second person I fell in love with because that’s what you do! The first person I was in love with would’ve killed a dog.”

 

The second time will not be the first time. The first time is an insane magical life gift that you can never reclaim. But that’s okay. The second time is more real anyway. The second time can involve some amazing love

[TNT1]

http://wastedatwork.com/beer/daily_picdump_580_640_high_90.jpg

[The expat cyclist]

exotic beer, foreign country - I think i will give that an awesome rating

 

May I just make an observation? Ever wondered why beer comes in a coloured bottle? Because sunlight affects the taste of the beer. You should enjoy that straight from the bottle or at least dump it in a coloured glass.

 

And that is why Millers taste like crap. (Yes, I know it is a draught, but still...)

[The Drongo]

Modern views as to the heavenly movements that influence the timing of the waxing and waning of the ice caps and the resulting rise and fall of the oceans, are still influenced by astronomical theories pioneered by the nineteenth-century glaciologists. These theories have been collected in the twentieth century under one name, the 'Milankovitch hypothesis' of ice ages.

 

The genius of Milankovitch: Out of place, out of time

 

Milutin Milankovitch was a Serb. He was caught in the wrong country at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 and interned. Luckily a friendly Hungarian professor had him paroled and moved from his cell to Budapest where he had access to the library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Oblivious to the war, he continued his calculations and finally published his first set of predictions in 1920. The genius of Milankovitch lay in the correct combination of astronomical cycles and meticulous calculation. When he died in 1958, the theory was falling out of vogue partly because of various discrepancies between his predictions and geologists' findings. Since then, the older techniques of geologists, particularly the accuracy of carbon-dating, have been found wanting and the Milankovitch model has emerged triumphant, thus standing the test of time.

 

A detailed description of the theory can be found elsewhere (see A.G.Dawson, Ice Age Earth, Routledge, London, 1992, chapter 13). But it is important to realise that frequent, apparently random, episodes of warming and cooling of the Earth can be explained to a great extent by the interplay of at least three celestial cycles, all running at different speeds. These cycles affect the warmth transmitted by the Sun to various parts of the Earth in a complex way. Of particular importance for the onset of glaciation is a decline in heat transmitted to northern temperate latitudes during summer with the resulting failure to melt last winter's snow. The amount of summer sun is controlled by three important heavenly cycles, which can be called respectively: the 100,000-year stretch, the 41,000-year tilt and the 23,000-year wobble.

 

Every year when the Earth circles the Sun, it moves alternately nearer and farther at different points of the circuit. This motion is called elliptical and the Sun lies to one end of the ellipse rather than in the middle. Over a period of approximately 100,000 years this ellipse stretches somewhat, and then shortens and fattens until it is nearly circular. The process is rather like taking a child’s hula-hoop and distorting it intermittently with two hands to make an ellipse. Over the cycle, the distance between the Earth and the Sun varies by as much as 18.26 million kilometres (11.35 million miles). Although the change in heat delivery over this cycle is relatively small, the effect on the Earth's climate is, for some reason, greater than with the other two mechanisms. At present the Sun's circuit does not particularly favour an ice age, but the onset of the next major glaciation can be predicted accurately from the cycles.

 

As we know the Earth’s axis of rotation is tilted at an angle to the Sun. The situation is rather like a top that will not spin upright. This is the reason for summer and winter, as the globe presents first its northern then its southern face to the Sun during one circuit. At present the tilt is about 23.5 degrees, but it varies between 21.5 and 24.5 degrees over a cycle of roughly 41,000 years. The greater the tilt, the more the seasonal imbalance in heat delivery from the Sun and the less the chance of ice remaining through the summer in temperate climates. At present we are near a neutral point between the extremes of this oscillation of tilt, thus neither favouring nor promoting an ice age.

 

The Earth is very like a child’s top in other ways. Not only does it spin at an angle of about 23 degrees to the Sun, but it also performs a slow pirouette as the sloped axis gyrates round itself. If you were a god accompanying the earth on its orbit round the Sun but perched up high looking down on the North Pole from directly above, you would see the pole performing a slow circle every 22,000 to 23,000 years. If you could see right through an imaginary glass globe to the South Pole you would see it performing the same circle 180 degrees out of phase. This spinning of the axis on itself is called axial precession, and all spinning tops can do it.

 

The effect of this precession is that the Earth slowly changes the face it presents to the Sun at different parts of the elliptical orbit. Precession does not change the angle of tilt, merely the direction of tilt. As a result, in the next 11,000 years or so, 21 June will become mid-winter in Europe and North America, and mid-summer in Australia. A fancy term for this slow ballet is the 'precession of the equinoxes'.

 

At present, the Earth presents the Northern Hemisphere to the Sun (i.e. during summer) when it is at its furthest away from the Sun. Conversely, the Southern Hemisphere has its summer when it is nearest to the Sun. Today’s position of axial precession, therefore, actually favours glaciation in the Northern Hemisphere. There was a similar situation about 20,000 years ago at the height of the last great ice age, but then the position of the other two cycles happened to tip the balance towards glaciation. About 11,000 years ago the summers were warmer in the Northern Hemisphere, which should have favoured melting of the polar ice caps.

 

The Milankovitch cycles are thus three elegant and stately celestial dances completely out of time with each other. They play out infinite yet predictable variations of heat stress on our planetary climate.

 

In the last twenty years geologists and oceanographers have developed methods that enable them to measure indirectly, the past course and variations in the melting and freezing of the ice caps. The more refined these measurements have become, the better they fit Milankovitch’s model predictions of the waxing and waning of the ice ages of the past 2 million years

Edited December 14, 2011 by The Drongo

[TNT1]

snip

 

 

So, apologist science says climate change isn't caused by man's influence, but is part of a cycle of nature?

[Stretch]

May I just make an observation? Ever wondered why beer comes in a coloured bottle? Because sunlight affects the taste of the beer. You should enjoy that straight from the bottle or at least dump it in a coloured glass.

 

And that is why Millers taste like crap. (Yes, I know it is a draught, but still...)

i agree - but in this case it was purely for effect!

 

on that note - and a few more of those down the gullet - i bid farewell

[The Drongo]

May I just make an observation? Ever wondered why beer comes in a coloured bottle? Because sunlight affects the taste of the beer. You should enjoy that straight from the bottle or at least dump it in a coloured glass.

 

And that is why Millers taste like crap. (Yes, I know it is a draught, but still...)

 

Chap. If your beer stays in ANY glass long enough for the sun to affect the taste....

 

THEN YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG !

[NotSoBigBen]

So, apologist science says climate change isn't caused by man's influence, but is part of a cycle of nature?

 

You read all that Bob - TV that bad?

[TNT1]

Chap. If your beer stays in ANY glass long enough for the sun to affect the taste....

 

THEN YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG !

 

My thoughts exactly.

[The Drongo]

So, apologist science says climate change isn't caused by man's influence, but is part of a cycle of nature?

 

We think we are so influential....