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Ado Mortumee

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Posts posted by Ado Mortumee

  7. Posted

    When trendsetters speculated what would be the defining men's fashion movement to sweep New York this winter, few opted for the male legging.

     

    But "Megging", as the male legging is known, is now all the rage in sartorial circles. Celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Russell Brand and Lenny Kravitz have all been spotted wearing leggings, while fashion stores Uniqlo, Barneys and Nordstrom are selling tights for men.

     

    The bad news is they are on their way to Britain: Uniqlo is already selling them on its British website, and their success in New York is seen as an indication they will also prove popular hereThey are expected to follow on from the trend for "skinny jeans" on men, which have become a staple of the British high street.

     

    One proud "megger" is Mark Dorosz, 34, an English internet entrepreneur who lives on the Upper East Side in Manhattan.

     

    "Male tights are so much more comfortable than skinny jeans," he said. "I've always had good legs and it's nice to show them off all year round.

     

    "There are so many people wearing exotic clothes in New York that nobody cares about a man wearing leggings if it works for him.

     

    "Perhaps people will be laughing around this in 12 months' time but for now they come up to me and say, 'You look awesome.'"

     

    Some New Yorkers, however, see the "megger" as an affront to masculinity. Gabriel Cru, 35, from the Bronx, said: "Men in tights? Get out of here. We don't do men in tights in New York. That's European!"

     

    New York-based British fashion designer Lucy Sykes warned that 'megging' is a hard look to pull off. "The only guy I've seen that looks good in a legging is my friend Neil who works with me at Rent the Runway," she said. "But he's young, dark and handsome and used to perform ballet at Lincoln Centre.

     

    "Frankly any other man I have seen [in tights] looks a bit of a wally."

     

    http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9731615/Men-in-tights-how-meggings-are-taking-fashion-by-storm.html

     

     

    “The line must be drawn here! This far, no further! And *I* will make them pay for what they’ve done.”

  13. Posted

    (Reuters) - House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner drew an election-year battle line over the U.S. borrowing limit on Tuesday, saying he would back another increase at year-end only if it was offset by a larger package of spending cuts.

    Drawing quick fire from President Barack Obama's Democrats, Boehner said he would "insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase."

    His remarks to a Peterson Foundation fiscal forum reopened last year's grueling battle over raising the debt cap, which allows the government to spend more than it takes in.

    Boehner staked out the same position during the 2011 fight, bringing the United States to the brink of an historic debt default before an 11th-hour deal to force $2.1 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years. The accompanying $2.1 trillion increase in the debt limit is rapidly being depleted.

    "Once again, Republicans are playing chicken with our economy and manufacturing an unnecessary crisis," said Representative Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

    Boehner's tough words could help him shore up support among fiscal conservatives and Tea Party activists within his party who often have been at odds with the top Republican.

    His move also opens another front in Republican efforts to underscore for voters the four straight years of trillion-dollar U.S. deficits during Obama's tenure in the White House following a deep recession.

    TAX-CUT EXTENSION VOTE

    Boehner stuck to his position that he would accept no tax increases in any deficit reduction talks.

    He said the Republican-led House would vote on a plan before the November 6 elections to stave off the year-end expiration of tax cuts enacted under former Republican President George W. Bush. This would buy time for Congress to pass a comprehensive tax reform bill in 2013 to reduce tax rates and eliminate many deductions and credits, Boehner said.

    "Any sudden tax hike would hurt our economy, so this fall - before the election - the House of Representatives will vote to stop the largest tax increase in American history," he said.

    He told the fiscal forum that that tax reforms would "bring everybody's rates down," but cleaning out the "underbrush" of tax deductions and credits could cause some Americans to pay more in taxes than they do now.

    Obama and fellow Democrats have insisted on a balanced package to address the country's deficit problems, including getting more tax revenues from the rich. Failing to do so, they argue, puts too much pressure on the poor and middle class for reining in deficits.

    SAME FIGHT, DIFFERENT YEAR

    Last August, many conservative "Tea Party" activists elected to Congress on promises of drastically shrinking government urged Boehner and other Republican leaders to allow a default rather than fail to significantly slash ballooning U.S. debt.

    The U.S. Treasury is expected to reach the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling sometime after the elections, probably early in 2013, with the exact timing dependent on the strength of revenues. U.S. debt is now about $800 billion below the limit.

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, speaking at the same fiscal forum, urged Congress to address "unsustainable" U.S. deficits in the near term to ensure the continued confidence of financial markets. Last year's debt-limit fight and the political gridlock it showcased cost the United States its coveted Triple-A credit rating from Standard and Poor's.

    "Only Congress of course can act to raise the debt limit. We hope they do it this time without the drama, and the pain and the damage they caused the country last July," Geithner said.

    Boehner also reaffirmed his call for reforms to squeeze savings out of large government "entitlement" programs such as the Social Security retirement and Medicare healthcare programs for the elderly. He said changes such as raising retirement ages could be phased in over time to limit any hardship.

    At year's end, Congress will be confronted with other important decisions besides the debt limit and the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, which Democrats and Republicans have both referred to as a dangerous "fiscal cliff".

    A payroll tax cut backed by Obama is also set to expire then and Congress already has begun looking at ways to replace automatic spending cuts that are set to kick in at the New Year. Meanwhile, Congress might still be grappling with funding many day-to-day government operations in the fiscal year that starts on October 1.

    These unresolved issues are contributing to nervousness and indecision among investors, businesses and voters.

    Obama said on Tuesday he would meet with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders, including Boehner, at the White House on Wednesday, where he would stress the importance of lawmakers acting on legislative proposals he has made to lift U.S. growth and hiring.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05//16/us-usa-congress-debt-idUSBRE84E0RY20120516

    *Sigh* I really wish the GOP would just toss the TP aside already.

  18. Posted

    Source #1: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0909/Politics-of-fighting-wildfires-Did-Rick-Perry-s-Texas-do-enough-on-its-own

     

     

     

    Politics of fighting wildfires: Did Rick Perry's Texas do enough on its own?

     

     

     

    Wildfires have taxed the capabilities of Texas to the limit, forcing Gov. Rick Perry, who has slashed firefighting budgets, to press President Obama for millions in federal aid.

     

     

     

    Magnolia, Texas

     

     

     

    Volunteer firefighter David Hill has frankly “lost count†of the number of Texas wildfires he's fought this year.

     

     

     

    A drought and heat wave that's broken records set during the Dust Bowl meant that Day 291 of the Texas wildfire season passed Thursday like malevolent clock work: Over 100 active fires, dozens of new ones being reported, and tired volunteer and professional firefighters digging deep to return to the fire fields and keep overworked equipment running.

     

     

     

    “It's something that becomes mentally and physically taxing,†says Mr. Hill of Tomball, Texas, watching the dark plume of the Riley Road complex fire north of Houston.

     

     

     

    It’s also something that is testing the independent streak that runs through the Lone Star state and its elected officials, who are confronting the allure of the cost- and risk-sharing benefits of a strong federal government.

     

     

     

    IN PICTURES: Texas wildfires

     

     

     

    Hill is part of a wildland firefighting structure that is usually a fine-tuned collaboration between local firefighters, who have jurisdiction, and a phalanx of local, state and federal authorities, including the US Forest Service, who serve as advisers and procurement agents.

     

     

     

    Some 21,000 fires have flared up in Texas since last December. In the last week, 176 more were reported, including one in Bastrop County that has devoured 1,300 homes so far. The fires have stretched the firefighting capabilities of Texas, and the nation, to the limit.

     

     

     

    Incident commanders have said some calls for equipment have gone unheeded as planners try to scramble manpower and equipment across this massive state.

     

     

     

    “Because so many fires are burning across the state, our resources are spread pretty thin,†Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said in a statement. “That's why we need the federal government to step up to the plate immediately.â€

     

     

     

    Gov. Rick Perry, currently the frontrunner among GOP presidential candidates, has been forced to press President Obama for more than $50 million in federal aid. At the same time, he defends the state's decision to slash by 74 percent the funding for the volunteer fire departments who do most of the work, and to cut the Texas Forest Service's budget by 34 percent, down to its 2008 level.

     

     

     

    Money from the state's rainy day fund will be used to fund the current wildfire fighting efforts, Governor Perry says. State legislators will have to reconcile the costs later. The fires are costing the state about $1.5 million a day, 75 percent of which could be recouped from Washington.

     

     

     

    Mr. Obama assured Perry in a phone call on Thursday that Washington will expedite consideration of disaster requests.

     

     

     

    But what some have called Texas' “slash and burn†approach to balancing its state budget has left volunteer firefighters, who do about 80 percent of the work, in a lurch. Just last week, the most recent budget cuts meant 90 Texas Forest Service employees were laid off. Some volunteers pay for expenses out of pocket. And the repeated emergency calls are stressing equipment like tankers and pumpers not built for continuous use.

     

     

     

    On Thursday, one of the Tomball tankers blew a transmission, leaving Hill on the sidelines as the Magnolia fire flared up, cutting across fire lines and highways, and forcing hundreds to rapidly flee their homes. Nearly 100 homes have been lost as a thick haze floated into Houston.

     

     

     

    "It's very frustrating that they don't have the proper tools and resources to fight these fires,†Chris Barron, the executive director of the State Firemen's and Fire Marshals' Association of Texas, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “If fire departments had enough funding, if the forest service had enough funding, we wouldn't be in this predicament each and every year."

     

     

     

    Texas' philosophical approach to governing is exemplified by Perry’s attacks on federal overreach. Perry has joined other Republicans in calling for spending cuts to offset any boosts to federal disaster relief funds, which were basically depleted by hurricane Irene. Democrats say they'll test Republicans' mettle by introducing a bill to Congress that boosts funding without offsetting cuts.

     

     

     

    It's an uneasy equation. Taxpayers, says Magnolia Fire Chief Vincent Gray, can't afford to have massive amounts of unused equipment stored at strategic staging points. But given the historic drought and powerful wildfires – the Bastrop fire quickly became by far the state's most destructive on record – firefighters have managed to corral necessary resources to manage what he calls “an unprecedented situation.â€

     

     

     

    “We haven't lost a single life on this fire, so I consider it a success,†he says. Statewide, four people have died in the current conflagrations.

     

     

     

    One saving grace has been Texas volunteerism, says an ash-smeared Ray Ruiz, Sr., the Texas Forest Service incident commander on the Riley Road fire.

     

     

     

    In Magnolia, volunteers washed the ash-covered windshields of firefighters' personal trucks. A “firefighter rehab†station was set up, pulling in a football game via satellite. And when a professional firefighter from Houston, Clayton Harris, drove up to Magnolia on his day off to volunteer, commanders quickly put him on a local truck. He spent the day in close combat with a flaring forest first that threatened to jump Farm Road 1488.

     

     

     

    “The guys on the truck seemed in high spirits,†says Mr. Harris. “They were out doing their job.â€

     

     

     

    By Thursday night, the Riley Road fire was 50 percent contained, down from 60 percent containment earlier in the day.

     

     

     

    Source #2: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/19/us-texas-budget-wildfires-idUSTRE74l39V20110519

     

     

     

    Texas plans to cut budget of agency battling fires

     

     

     

    (Reuters) - Texas lawmakers are set to slash funding for the agency responsible for fighting wildfires in the midst of a historic wildfire season in which some 2.5 million acres have burned.

     

     

     

    The Texas Forest Service faces almost $34 million in budget cuts over the next two years, roughly a third of the agency's total budget. The cuts are in both the House and Senate versions of the proposed state budget.

     

     

     

    The Forest Service has about 200 firefighters and offers assistance grants to volunteer fire departments. Assistance grants are likely to take the biggest hit.

     

     

     

    Volunteers -- two of whom were killed in fighting this year's fires -- make up nearly 80 percent of the state's fire-fighting force and are first responders to roughly 90 percent of wildfires in Texas.

     

     

     

    "Volunteer programs are our No. 1 defense," Forest Service Director Tom Boggus told Reuters.

     

     

     

    Since 2002, the Forest Service has given out $153 million in grants, which have paid for 44,000 sets of protective clothing, 1,200 fire engines and funded the training of about 34,000 firefighters.

     

     

     

    A state commission that reviewed the Forest Service this year noted the grants were not distributed to the counties most at risk for wildfires. Boggus said that is because the service only recently conducted a study to determine which counties are the most at-risk, and that the agency now plans to distribute grants based on that information.

     

     

     

    Chris Barron, executive director of the State Firemen's and Fire Marshals' Association, said volunteer fire departments rely heavily on grant funding. He said $135 million in requests are backlogged from volunteer fire departments.

     

     

     

    "That alone should say that the departments out there greatly need the funding," he told Reuters.

     

     

     

    "Stuff in the fire service is not cheap," Barron added.

     

     

     

    He said many volunteer fire departments already have worn-down equipment and without funding for new equipment, response times will almost certainly increase.

     

     

     

    Barron also works for a volunteer fire department in South Austin that sent a truck to West Texas to battle the Rock House fire that burned more than 200,000 acres last month. He said the truck needed repairs after the trip, which wasn't unusual.

     

     

     

    "It's just the wear and tear of fire departments trying to help each other out," Barron said.

     

    But Texas, which has a two-year budget cycle, has a shortfall of up to $27 billion for 2012-2013. Talmadge Heflin, director of the Center for Fiscal Policy at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, said everybody should share in the cuts.

     

     

     

    "We understand the difficulty they have had in dealing with almost unprecedented numbers of fires this year," said Heflin, a former state representative. "We also understand that in order to balance the budget, everybody needs to endure some reductions."

     

     

     

    Heflin told Reuters there are discretionary funds in the governor's office for emergencies which could be used to help fight wildfires.

     

     

     

    "We feel they'll be able to handle whatever's thrown at them," he said.

     

     

     

    I… words are currently insufficient (due to how many of my brain cells have committed suicide for the second time today) to convey just how idiotic I think this is. No, wait, I now exactly what to say now: The stupid! It burns! Literally!

  20. Posted

    A planet made of diamond

     

     

     

    Date posted: 26 Aug 2011

     

     

     

    A once-massive star that’s been transformed into a small planet made of diamond: that’s what astronomers think they’ve found in our Milky Way.

     

     

     

    The discovery, reported today in Science, was made by an international research team led by Professor Matthew Bailes, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne and the ‘Dynamic Universe’ theme leader in a new wide-field astronomy initiative, the ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO).

     

     

     

    The researchers, from Australia, Germany, Italy, the UK and the USA, first detected an unusual star called a pulsar using the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope and followed up their discovery with the Lovell radio telescope in the UK and one of the Keck telescopes in Hawaii.

     

     

     

    Pulsars are small spinning stars about 20 km in diameter—the size of a small city—that emit a beam of radio waves. As the star spins and the radio beam sweeps repeatedly over Earth, radio telescopes detect a regular pattern of radio pulses.

     

     

     

    For the newly discovered pulsar, known as PSR J1719-1438, the astronomers noticed that the arrival times of the pulses were systematically modulated. They concluded that this was due to the gravitational pull of a small companion planet, orbiting the pulsar in a binary system.

     

     

     

    The pulsar and its planet are part of the Milky Way’s plane of stars and lie 4,000 light-years away in the constellation of Serpens (the Snake). The system is about an eighth of the way towards the Galactic Centre from the Earth.

     

     

     

    The modulations in the radio pulses tell astronomers several things about the planet.

     

    First, it orbits the pulsar in just two hours and ten minutes, and the distance between the two objects is 600,000 km—a little less than the radius of our Sun.

     

     

     

    Second, the companion must be small, less than 60,000 km (that’s about five times the Earth’s diameter). The planet is so close to the pulsar that, if it were any bigger, it would be ripped apart by the pulsar’s gravity.

     

     

     

    But despite its small size, the planet has slightly more mass than Jupiter.

     

     

     

    "This high density of the planet provides a clue to its origin," said Professor Bailes.

     

     

     

    A star is torn

     

     

     

    The team thinks that the ‘diamond planet’ is all that remains of a once-massive star, most of whose matter was siphoned off towards the pulsar.

     

     

     

    Pulsar J1719-1438 is a very fast-spinning pulsar—what’s called a millisecond pulsar. Amazingly, it rotates more than 10,000 times per minute, has a mass of about 1.4 times that of our Sun but is only 20 km in diameter. About 70 per cent of millisecond pulsars have companions of some kind. Astronomers think it is the companion that, in its star form, transforms an old, dead pulsar into a millisecond pulsar by transferring matter and spinning it up to a very high speed. The result is a fast-spinning millisecond pulsar with a shrunken companion—most often a so-called white dwarf.

     

     

     

    "We know of a few other systems, called ultra-compact low-mass X-ray binaries, that are likely to be evolving according to this scenario and may likely represent the progenitors of a pulsar like J1719-1438," said team member Dr Andrea Possenti, Director of the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari in Italy.

     

     

     

    But pulsar J1719-1438 and its companion are so close together that the companion can only be a very stripped-down white dwarf, one that has lost its outer layers and over 99.9 per cent of its original mass.

     

     

     

    "This remnant is likely to be largely carbon and oxygen, because a star made of lighter elements like hydrogen and helium would be too big to fit the measured orbiting times," said Dr Michael Keith (CSIRO), one of the research team members.

     

    The density means that this material is certain to be crystalline: that is, a large part of the star may be similar to a diamond.

     

     

     

    "The ultimate fate of the binary is determined by the mass and orbital period of the donor star at the time of mass transfer. The rarity of millisecond pulsars with planet-mass companions means that producing such ‘exotic planets’ is the exception rather than the rule, and requires special circumstances," said Dr Benjamin Stappers from the University of Manchester.

     

     

     

    The team found pulsar J1719-1438 among almost 200,000 Gigabytes of data using special codes on supercomputers at Swinburne University of Technology, The University of Manchester, and the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari..

     

    The discovery was made during a systematic search for pulsars over the whole sky that also involves the 100 metre Effelsberg radio telescope of the Max-Planck-Institute for Radioastronomy (MPIfR) in Germany. "This is the largest and most sensitive survey of this type ever conducted. We expected to find exciting things, and it is great to see it happening. There is more to come!" said Professor Michael Kramer, Director of the MPIfR.

     

     

     

    Professor Matthew Bailes is a member of the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at Swinburne which is uniquely resourced to process the torrents of data generated by telescopes and simulations.

     

     

     

    Publication:

     

     

     

    M. Bailes et al. [17 co-authors] "Transformation of a Star into a Planet in a Millisecond Pulsar Binary," published in Science.

     

     

     

    http://www.swinburne.edu.au/chancellery/mediacentre/media-centre/news/2011/08/a-planet-made-of-diamond

     

     

     

    The planet is now Diamonds! Anything is possible when your man smells like a mad scientist.

  22. Posted

    I have return! I finally have enough free time to post again.

     

     

     

    And on another note I finally caved and decided to watch MLP: FiM… its actually good, and didn’t make me start clawing out my eyes out after the first few seconds. Far superior to most of the crap they have on nowadays.

     

     

     

    reach_22402241_Full.jpg

     

     

     

    Halo is now about 20% cooler.

     

     

     

     

    pinkie_pie_launcher_by_flamingo1986-d3gluka.png

     

     

     

    Time to party. Anyone want a cupcake?

     

     

     

  24. Posted

    Not to mention he's a rule-breaker at SFJ. Let's see, he once flamebaited me when he ignored canon evidence and official quotes, and he's created, what, 13 sockpuppets to circumvent his banning. Basically, he's an arrogant trolling piece of monkey shit.

     

    Should try and get him over here. The amusement of shredding his arguments and the resulting butt hurt would be well worth putting up with the stupidity, I think.

     

     

     

    Hm, Forerunners Vs Star Trek... purely for the lolz if he comes over here.

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