Apparently, It Can Be Scottish and Still Be Crap

Scotland has replaced its airport signs proclaiming the country to be "the best small country in the world" with a new slogan: "Welcome to Scotland."

The new slogan, which was revealed Tuesday after six months of development and $250,000 spent on the project, is also printed on the posters in Gaelic as "Failte gu Alba," The Times of London reported Wednesday.

The posters also include a series of images depicting life in Scotland, including a boy looking at an exhibit at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, a man in a raincoat walking in Edinburgh and a picture taken from a high altitude of Inverness.

Some have criticized the campaign for lacking emotion.

"It feels governmental, corporate and static," Anita Califano, a senior consultant with 2012 London Olympics logo creator Wolff Olins, told The Times. "It all fails to convey the spirit of the place, the emotion. If the purpose of branding is to create an emotional connection, they are not doing that."

Google Maps Introduces Terrain View

Today Google launched Terrain maps on all Google Maps properties. Terrain maps focus on physical features such as mountains, valleys, and vegetation. They feature elevation shading, and contain extra labels for even very small mountains, river rapids, and trails.

Activate by hitting the "Terrain" button in the upper right corner of the map - the Hybrid map view is now accessed by hitting "Satellite" and checking "Show labels".

Incidentally, the blue trail you see is not a part of Google, it is from my wrist-mounted Garmin GPS and it shows one of the many trails I have run or hiked - via MotionBased.

Check Out the Air Pollution Where You Live with Google Earth

From EcoStreet: US residents can now check out what they're being poisoned with by checking out this new tool provided by the US Environmental Protection Agency and Google Earth. It's a useful tool to track air quality in your community or if you are planning to move to another area to escape airborne toxins. Check for levels of carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen oxides, VOCs, particulate matter and sulfur dioxide.

You can also identify big emitters easily, like cement plants, chemical manufacturers and petroleum refineries, amongst others. Focus on a particular state or sector to get the most accurate details. You need to have Google Earth already installed on your computer for the EPA file to work, or if you'd prefer not to install it, you can download the text version. It's not as much fun to use as the Google Earth file, but it contains all the information you’ll need.

Paradise Not As Friendly As Expected

I spent Thanksgiving with friends in Paradise, California. Yes I know - that's DAMN FUNNY!

Luckily, I found the people and the spirit of the place to be much more inviting than the above map might lead one to believe. 

About Holiday Mail To "A Recovering American Soldier"

Have you received an email stating:

Nice idea!

When you are making out your Christmas cards this year, please include the

following:

A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20307-5001

If you approve, pass it on.

Well according to Snopes - it's false.

Mail to Wounded and Recovering Soldiers

Walter Reed Army Medical Center officials want to remind those individuals who want to show their appreciation through mail to include packages and letters, addressed to "Any Wounded Soldier" that Walter Reed will not be accepting these packages in support of the decision by then Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Transportation Policy in 2001. This decision was made to ensure the safety and well being of patients and staff at medical centers throughout the Department of Defense.

In addition, the U.S. Postal Service is no longer accepting "Any Service Member" or "Any Wounded Service Member" letters or packages. Mail to "Any Service Member" that is deposited into a collection box will not be delivered.

Instead of sending an "Any Wounded Soldier" letter or package to Walter Reed, please consider making a donation to one of the more than 300 nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping our troops and their families listed on the "America Supports You" website, www.americasupportsyou.mil  

Other organizations that offer means of showing your support for our troops or assist wounded servicemembers and their families include:

http://www.usocares.org/  
http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/tooursoldiers/  
http://www.redcross.org  

For individuals without computer access, your local military installation, the local National Guard or military reserve unit in your area may offer the best alternative to show your support to our returning troops and their families. Walter Reed Army Medical Center will continue to receive process and deliver all mail that is addressed to a specific individual.

As Walter Reed continues to enhance the medical care and processes for our returning service members, it must also must keep our patients and staff members safe while following Department of Defense policy. The outpouring of encouragement from the general public, corporate America and civic groups throughout the past year has been incredible. Our Warriors in Transition are amazed at the thanks and support they receive from their countrymen.

First Proof Of A Parallel Universe Discovered

Ok kids - thinking caps on, here's a big 'ole mind-fudger:

Radio astronomers have announced that they have found an enormous hole in the universe. Nearly a billion light years across, the void lies in the constellation Eridanus and has far fewer stars, gas and galaxies than usual. It is bigger than anyone imagined possible and is beyond the present understanding of cosmology. What could cause such a gaping hole? One team of physicists has a breathtaking explanation: "It is the unmistakable imprint of another universe beyond the edge of our own," says Laura Mersini-Houghton of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

It is a staggering claim. If Mersini-Houghton's team is right, the giant void is the first experimental evidence for another universe. It would also vindicate string theory, our most promising understanding of how the universe works at its most fundamental level.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill physics Professor Laura Mersini-Houghton made a staggering claim. She says, “Standard cosmology cannot explain such a giant cosmic hole” and goes further with the ground-breaking hypothesis that the huge void is “… the unmistakable imprint of another universe beyond the edge of our own“.

The idea of alternative, or parallel universes has been around for quite a while and has provided considerable inspiration for Sci-Fi literature and sparked endless philosophical debate, but although begin seriously considered within the scientific realm it never crossed the limits of speculative of purely theoretical grounds. Perhaps until now. If Mersini-Houghton is right, Eridanus’ giant hole would be the first experimental evidence for the existence of another universe. The implications of this possibility are obviously of huge importance for everybody, but it also has further relevance for the astrophysics community as it would bring support for the hotly debated string theory and other central debates.

But Mersini-Houghton and colleagues’ theory of entangled universes make testable predictions, providing the opportunity to confirm or refute the claim as more data arrive to the astronomers’ computers. Her model predicts the existence of two voids rather than one, one in each hemisphere of our universe. The one that has been found by WMAP’s data lies in the Northern hemisphere. They expect new data will show a second similar void in the Southern side. This and other cutting-edge experimental projects testing Mersini-Houghton’s ideas will tell us whether a new era in cosmological thinking has indeed arrived.

World's Greatest Thanksgiving \ Christmas Turkey Recipe

Your dinner will be the talk of the town! Sure to bring smiles from your guests!

Here is the most crowd-pleasing way to prepare your holiday turkey.

1. Cut out aluminum foil in desired shapes.

2. Arrange the turkey in the roasting pan, position the foil carefully. (see attached picture for details)

3. Roast according to your own recipe and serve.

4. Send me photos, because I know you're going to try it . . .

What To Do If You Encounter A Mountain Lion

I was hiking Coal Canyon the other day and came across this "updated" sign explaining what to do if you encounter a mountain lion.

Religious Scholars Contemplate Flying Spaghetti Monster

The appearance of the Flying Spaghetti Monster on the agenda of the American Academy of Religion's annual meeting gives a kind of scholarly imprimatur to a phenomenon that first emerged in 2005, during the debate in Kansas over whether intelligent design should be taught in public school sciences classes.

Supporters of intelligent design hold that the order and complexity of the universe is so great that science alone cannot explain it. The concept's critics see it as faith masquerading as science.

An Oregon State physics graduate named Bobby Henderson stepped into the debate by sending a letter to the Kansas School Board. With tongue in cheek, he purported to speak for 10 million followers of a being called the Flying Spaghetti Monster -- and demanded equal time for their views.

"We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it," Henderson wrote. As for scientific evidence to the contrary, "what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage."

The letter made the rounds on the Internet, prompting laughter from some and vilification from others. But it struck a chord and stuck around. In the great tradition of satire, its humor was in fact a clever and effective argument.

Between the lines, the point of the letter was this: There's no more scientific basis for intelligent design than there is for the idea an omniscient creature made of pasta created the universe. If intelligent design supporters could demand equal time in a science class, why not anyone else?

Full Story: CNN

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster