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The Miserable Life of the Presidential Turkey. Every November, deep in the White House’s rose gardens, the President of the United States raises his hand above a specially-selected turkey's head, and gives it a Presidential pardon. Today, Mr. Obama will honor the 31st such bird, a 40-pounder named "Tom One.

" The act supposedly ensures the bird a life free from the shackles of Thanksgiving dinner -- a life of aimless roaming, gobbling, and other turkey activities. But the “tradition” comes with a dark side. Pardoned turkeys are bred from birth to be especially obese for the cameras. "Pumpkin", a 45-pound turkey, exploring George W. The tradition’s unofficial roots extend back to Abraham Lincoln, who, in addition to being our nation’s sixteenth POTUS, was a fanatical animal lover.

Lincoln maintained a healthy stable of White House pets, and he treated them like royalty. His enthusiasm didn’t wane when it came to turkeys. In November 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, Lincoln officially proclaimed Thanksgiving Day a national holiday. Invisible Institute. Putin’s politics of uncertainty: how the Kremlin raised the stakes. ‘Russia is returning to the political arena as a global player,’ that’s what the commentators are saying today—even those who don’t support Vladimir Putin. Whether this return is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, whether it’s a threat to the world or not, these commentators are simply stating a fact: Russia has kicked off military operations far beyond its borders.

A ‘regional power’ doesn’t have this kind of reach. Celeste Wallander, Senior Director for Russia and Eurasia on the US National Security Council, calls Putin’s strategy ‘mistaken’, but the tactics ‘brilliant’. Meanwhile, Condoleezza Rice also finds room for ‘praise’ in her recent, and highly critical, evaluation of Putin’s foreign policy in The Washington Post: ‘The fact is that Putin is playing a weak hand extraordinarily well’. It’s worth pausing on what that hand has been so far. Strategically weak, tactically successful These assertions are put to Putin too, who sees that his ‘politics of increasing uncertainty’ are bringing results.

Lifestyle Inflation Isn’t Always a Bad Thing. "Kamchatka Peninsula" by Bike and Kayak - 16. Klyuchi, the once forbidden town, delivers 'exotic' variety! I have found, awaking in Siberia, or at least the Kamchatka peninsula, quite a unfamiliar challenge: Go to bed, with clear skies, beautiful sunset, and wake with coolish temperature, fog so thick one can cut it with a knife, and not a breath of wind. The humidity is at 100% and being continually topped up, making everything damp, and the tent flysheet as wet as if it had rained heavily. Visibility is barely a hundred metres, and from the cosyiness of my sleeping bag, view through the crack in my tent flap door, makes the day's planned 7am start seem masochistic and very unromantic....! What's the rush, is a very valid question? There is something in the value of the discipline of routine and commitment, but on the other side, total self sufficiency and freedom of choice is the counterweight sometimes confusing the equation!

I decide cycling while its cooler is a good strategy, and a few weeks of history says the fog doesn't lift for quite a few hours! Continued on next post.... Russia prepares reprisals against Ukraine over Crimea blackout. * Moscow threatens to cut gas to Ukraine By Andrew Osborn and Pavel Polityuk MOSCOW/KIEV, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Russia said on Tuesday it would cut off gas supplies to Ukraine and threatened to halt coal deliveries, ratcheting up a dispute over a power blackout in Crimea at a time when a ceasefire between Kiev and separatist rebels is fraying.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak accused the Ukrainian authorities of deliberately refusing to help rebuild power lines to Russia-annexed Crimea, which were blown up by unknown saboteurs over the weekend. The peninsula of 2 million people is relying on emergency generators to meet its basic power needs, with pro-Ukrainian activists, including nationalist battalions and ethnic Tartars, preventing repairs. Comments by two Ukrainian lawmakers to Reuters suggest Kiev might be tacitly backing the activists. "There are different options, political ones, economic ones," said Novak, when asked how Russia could retaliate. Trumpism Has Triumphed. Health | Paedophiles' brains 'different' Scientists say distinct differences in the brain activity of paedophiles have been found using scanning technology. A Yale University team found activity in parts of paedophiles' brains were lower than in other volunteers when shown adult, erotic material. The journal Biological Psychiatry said this was the first real-time evidence of differences in thought patterns.

A forensic psychologist from the UK said drug treatments for paedophilia might be possible. There is increasing evidence that problems in certain areas of the brain may contribute to feelings of sexual attraction towards children. In a few cases, patients with a brain tumour in a particular part of the brain have developed such feelings, only for them to go away when the tumour was removed. The Yale study used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), a technique which allows the activity within the brain to be recorded as the patient is thinking. Drug treatment. Norway 'the best place to live' Norway is the best place in the world to live while Niger is the least desirable, according to an annual report by the United Nations. The 182 countries were ranked according to the quality of life their citizens experienced. Criteria examined included life expectancy, literacy rates, school enrolment and country economies. However the UN human development index used data collected in 2007 - before the global economic crisis.

Opposites The UN Development Programme said the index highlighted the grave disparities between rich and poor countries. Norway's consistently high rating for desirable living standards, is, in large part, the result of the discovery of offshore oil and gas deposits in the late 1960s. Niger, however, is a drought-prone country which has sometimes struggled to feed its people. Other countries to reach the top spots were Australia and Iceland. The 2008 crisis exposed the Icelandic economy's dependence on the banking sector, leaving it particularly vulnerable to collapse. Euro off as ECB seen easing further; Wall Street ends flat. The 12 days that will decide Earth's future: A guide to COP21.

The past several years have seen a huge ramp up in climate activities and ambitions among businesses, states, regions and cities. Dozens of mayors as well as CEOs from around the world will be present to make their voices heard during the summit. These actions raise the stakes for Paris, and result in even more momentum and support for national leaders to take action. “You know, in climate change, we talk a lot about tipping points,” said Andrew Steer, the CEO of the World Resources Institute. “We tend to think about bad tipping points. But, of course, this conference is about potentially good tipping points.” For Steer, a successful outcome in Paris could create ripple effects that reverberate throughout global markets, all the way down to the local level. “And all the evidence is that that economy will be better and the quality of life will be better,” Steer said.

How stranger danger changed the way children play. Closeted in the home or watched over by 'helicopter' parents, children lack much of the freedom they had only 50 years ago. What changed? Steve Humphries, who has made a new TV series on the way young people play, charts the rise of stranger danger. British children's play has been transformed in the last 100 years. Up to the 1960s there were few children who didn't spend much of their free time outdoors, playing in the fields, parks, streets, back alleys, old bombsites and local beauty spots. This play was unsupervised by mum or dad and children were free to go on adventures far from home. Sadly this world of independent child's play has today largely vanished.

One of the important reasons for this decline is the inexorable rise of stranger danger and child abduction in modern Britain. It was in the mid 1960s that this new threat to children's freedom really took hold of the popular imagination. The impact this had on children's play is vividly recalled by many growing at the time. ELI5: Why people say "pardon my French" right before/after they swear : explainlikeimfive.

History, Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places. Quora. American Bridge PAC. Still Buying Meat From The Grocery Store? You won’t After Reading This. Humans are omnivores. We don’t naturally lean toward vegetarianism, as historically it has been difficult to get all of our nutrients this way. Of course, vegetarianism is an easy and healthy choice for many now that grocery stores are accessible to nearly all in the Western world. However, when it comes to meat, the products in your local butcher department have little resemblance to the animal proteins consumed by our ancestors. This has implications for our overall health that most don’t even realize.

For most of human history, we were nomadic hunter/gatherers. The problem is that now our farms aren’t there to produce products for the local market necessarily. Let’s break down the modern meat industry. Our Modern Meat American meat production became big business after World War II was over and our economy and population starting booming. Those that are lucky are fed corn and soy. Legally, our livestock in the U.S. can be fed euthanized dogs and cats, horses, and road kill.

Conclusion. Einstein And Oppenheimer Wrote A Secret Document About UFOs And Aliens. According to a National Geographic survey, 77 percent of all Americans "believe there are signs that aliens have visited Earth. " About 1 in 12 Americans believe they've seen a UFO at some point or another. Now, a declassified document written by Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist, and Albert Einstein, a German theoretical physicist, discusses our "Relationship with inhabitants of celestial bodies.

" The document is somewhat enigmatic. A total of only six pages in length, it references Extraterrestrial Biological Entities and how we should react to their presence. The document reads, in part: "Relationships with extraterrestrial men presents no basically new problem from the standpoint of international law; but the possibility of confronting intelligent beings that do not belong to the human race would bring up problems whose solution it is difficult to conceive. The difficulty lies in trying to establish the principles on which these relationships should be based. 10 Winter Pittsburgh Date Ideas You Should Try — Fresh Factory.

A hearing son in deaf family: ‘I’d rather be deaf’ Meet the Pedersen family: parents Rod and Jamie; and the children: Zane, Jax and Kaleb. They were all born deaf, except Kaleb — who at age 20, is the oldest child. “Obviously, I didn’t choose to be the only hearing one,” Kaleb said on the phone from their home near San Francisco in Pleasanton, California.

Thanks to his upbringing, Kaleb prefers Deaf culture over the hearing world. “There’s more of a sense of belonging in the Deaf culture. They just feel closer together than how hearing people act with each other.” “I don’t wish that they could hear, because there’s nothing wrong with them,” Kaleb said. The Pedersens are featured in CNN Films’ new Digital Short titled, “All-American Family.” Long-established deaf schools in and around places such as San Francisco, Rochester, New York; Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles have led to large pockets of deaf residents in those cities. That’s “Deaf” with a capital “D.” When the family meets at restaurants, Kaleb orders for everybody. Uk.businessinsider. Xi’s China: The Illusion of Change by Ian Johnson | NYR Daily. Xi Jinping is often described as China’s most powerful leader in decades, perhaps even since Mao.

He has been credited—if sometimes grudgingly—with pursuing a vigorous foreign policy, economic reforms, and a historic crackdown on corruption. But as Xi completes his third year in office this month, this judgment seems increasingly mistaken, with China trapped by the same taboos that limited Xi’s predecessors. At heart this means a one-party state unwilling to retreat from the commanding heights of the country’s economic, political, and social life. The only area where the government has shown real creativity has been in coming up with new ways of legitimizing its rule—diversions from the real issues facing the country.

This is all the more striking when we consider that Xi is now probably at the peak of his power. But rather than significant innovation, Xi’s overriding goal seems to be preserving the ossified system he inherited when he came to power in 2012. How to Fix Everything. Image: Jason Koebler It happened suddenly, like most of these stories do. My alarm went off. I kicked my leg out as I jolted awake, making solid contact with my new laptop, which was innocently lying at the foot of my hotel bed for some reason. It landed on a chair leg; the crash was loud. My options were few. $600 for an LCD replacement at the Apple store. $500 to get an independent repairman to do it. And then I saw the screw. If you’ve tried to open any iDevice—iPad, iPhone, iMac, any of them—within the last four years, you've come face-to-face with Apple’s very small, five-pointed Do Not Enter sign.

If you’re reading this on your iPhone or have one nearby, look at either side of the charging port and you’ll seem them: two tiny, star-shaped screw heads that, outside of an obscure wheelchair manufacturer, do not otherwise exist in the wild. Pentalobe screws. There is a solution to this “pentalobe” screw, however. So, Apple has lots of ways to keep you out of your devices. Kyle Wiens. Been looking for a pediatrician lately. I think I've found the one... Economic Inequality Dampens the Generosity of the Wealthy. The rich are different from you and me: They are less generous. That notion has been circulating in countless news articles and research papers in recent years. But a newly published study suggests it's not entirely true. It finds wealthy people are indeed less generous than the less-fortunate, but only if they live in a society with a high level of economic inequality.

Given the fact that the gap between the rich and the rest has been rising steadily in the United States—Pew reported two years ago that inequality is at its highest level since 1928—that's not comforting news. But it suggests that miserliness, rather than stemming directly from wealth, is triggered in part by societal conditions. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a research team led by Stéphane Côté discovers this dynamic in both a nationally representative survey and an online experiment. The experiment featured 704 people recruited online via Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Economic Inequality Dampens the Generosity of the Wealthy. Li-Fi has just been tested in the real world, and it's 100 times faster than Wi-Fi. Expect to hear a whole lot more about Li-Fi - a wireless technology that transmits high-speed data using visible light communication (VLC) - in the coming months.

With scientists achieving speeds of 224 gigabits per second in the lab using Li-Fi earlier this year, the potential for this technology to change everything about the way we use the Internet is huge. And now, scientists have taken Li-Fi out of the lab for the first time, trialling it in offices and industrial environments in Tallinn, Estonia, reporting that they can achieve data transmission at 1 GB per second - that's 100 times faster than current average Wi-Fi speeds.

"We are doing a few pilot projects within different industries where we can utilise the VLC (visible light communication) technology," Deepak Solanki, CEO of Estonian tech company, Velmenni, told IBTimes UK. "Currently we have designed a smart lighting solution for an industrial environment where the data communication is done through light.

Deutsche Bank's John Cryan utters the words you never thought you would hear from a big bank CEO. How to Get That Annoying Political Person to Shut Up During the Holidays. Businessinsider. How An 'Untouchable' Teenage Hacker Is Destroying An American Family. Archives "A Trip to the 'Caliphate': Oppressive Justice under ISIS," By Omar al-Wardi - Syria Comment. The incredible plan to make money grow on trees | Sam Knight. Uk.businessinsider. Learn to Protect Yourself with These Krav Maga Self-Defense Moves. This Interactive Map Shows Exactly How Much Daylight Saving Time Affects You. A clearer look at the flight path Turkey says was used by a Russian jet. Josh Franks's answer to Why do many Chinese visitors feel disappointed when they visit the US the first time? Solving the Procrastination Puzzle: A Field Guide to Finally Getting Started.

ELI5: Why are shows like Dr.Oz allowed to give out health advice that isn't scientifically supported? How isn't this considered illegal? : explainlikeimfive. Argentina’s new president has one of the toughest jobs in the global economy. Britons 'passive against crime' Iran’s Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art Has Been Hiding One of the World’s Great Art Collections. Uk.businessinsider. Quora. China wants to build a high-speed rail link to a newly open Iran. Quora. Earth - How do we know that things are really made of atoms? Learn How to Lead Different Types of Individuals With the "DiSC" System  Businessinsider. “Plant Lamps” Turn Dirt and Vegetation into a Power Source. Mauricio Macri’s Political Goal. For millions of Americans, getting a job depends on one little box.

Welcome to the New WordPress.com and WordPress.com App for Mac. Moscow Court Bans Church of Scientology. WordPress.com Gets A New Face And Joins the Javascript Age. Quora. Argentine President-Elect Promises Change But Faces Challenges. Singapore’s lesson for Modi: Smart cities don’t work without religious freedom. Quora. Sony_employees_on_the_hack_one_year_later.single. 'Spying' on Islamic State instead of hacking them. 'Spying' on Islamic State instead of hacking them. Marvel’s Jessica Jones, explained. How Google Maps knows about traffic. Soldiers patrol Brussels, guard EU buildings, after overnight arrests. Life as a drone operator: 'Ever step on ants and never give it another thought?' CBBC - Newsround - How was Israel created? Uk.businessinsider. Uk.businessinsider. Why Do Young People Like Socialism More Than Older People?

When is it immoral to have children? Imgur. Real Confidence Begins With Believing In Your Ability to Improve. Quora. Bringing Up Genius. Pope Says Christmas Will Be ‘A Charade’ Because ‘Whole World Is At War’ The Doomsday Invention. Lights out / Stars on | Andri Magnason. Gizmodo. Lifehacker. Lifehacker. I Hired a Millennial Life Coach. Why South African students have turned on their parents’ generation | Eve Fairbanks | News. TrueCrypt is safer than previously reported, detailed analysis concludes. Quora. Quora. I am a guy preschool teacher, ask me anything! : IAmA. It’s official—NSA did keep its e-mail metadata program after it “ended” in 2011. The Generation That Doesn't Remember Life Before Smartphones.

Why I Had My Babies With a Midwife Instead of a Doctor. Comcast Internet Deals, T-Mobile Deals Are Ruining The Internet. The cast of 'The Man in the High Castle' talk about Nazism and gray areas. Virtual car shopping on a HoloLens? Volvo says it's coming next year thanks to Microsoft partnership.