White's tree frog is a species of tree frog native to Australia and
New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand and the United
States. The species belongs to the genus Litoria, and is
physiologically similar with some other species of the genus;
particularly the magnificent tree frog and the giant tree frog.
White's tree frog is a large species compared with most Australian
frogs, reaching 10 centimetres in length. The average lifespan of the
species in captivity, about 16 years, is long in comparison with most
frogs. White's tree frogs are docile and well suited to living near
human dwellings. They can be heard calling in downpipes and tanks
throughout their region, and are often found on windows or inside
houses, eating insects drawn by the light. Due to its physical and
behavioural traits, White's tree frog has become one of the most
recognisable frogs in its region and a popular exotic pet throughout
the world. The skin secretions of the frog have antibacterial and
antiviral properties that may prove to be useful to the pharmaceutical
industry.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White%27s_tree_frog
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1810:
Napoleon divorced Empress Joséphine, his childless first wife.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9phine_de_Beauharnais)
1929:
Belgian artist Hergé created Tintin, a fictional character who went
on to be published in over 200 million comic books in 40 languages.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin)
1946:
The first General Assembly of the United Nations opened in London.
Fifty-one member states were represented.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
Know that however ugly the parts appear the whole remains beautiful...
... the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the
universe. Love that, not man Apart from that, or else you will share
man's pitiful confusions, or drown in despair when his days darken. --
Robinson Jeffers --
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robinson_Jeffers)
The omnipotence paradox is a philosophical paradox which arises when
attempting to apply logic to the notion of an omnipotent being. The
paradox is based around the question of whether or not an omnipotent
being is able to perform actions that would limit its own omnipotence,
thus becoming non-omnipotent. Some philosophers see this argument as
proof of the impossibility of the existence of any such entity; others
assert that the paradox arises from a misunderstanding or
mischaracterization of the concept of omnipotence. In addition,
several philosophers have considered the assumption that a being is
either omnipotent or non-omnipotent to be a false dilemma, as it
neglects the possibility of varying degrees of omnipotence. Often, the
paradox is formulated in terms of the God of the Abrahamic religions,
though this is not a requirement. Since the Middle Ages, philosophers
have phrased the paradox in many ways, of which the classic example
is, "Could an omnipotent being create a rock so heavy that even that
being could not lift it?" This particular statement has subtle flaws,
but as the most famous version, it still serves adequately for
illustrating the different ways the paradox has been analyzed.
(more...)
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1768:
Philip Astley staged the first modern circus in London.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/circus_%28performing_art%29)
1839:
The French Academy of Sciences announced the Daguerreotype
photographic process, named after its inventor, Louis Daguerre.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype)
1878:
Humbert the Good became King of Italy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_I_of_Italy)
1916:
World War I: In Gallipoli, the Ottoman Empire was victorious in the
Battle of Çanakkale.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gallipoli)
1964:
Martyrs' Day in Panama. 4 days of fighting between US armed forces and
panamanian civillians to end the Canal Zone.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrs%27_Day)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"Life will not perish! It will begin anew with love; it will start out
naked and tiny; it will take root in the wilderness, and to it all
that we did and built will mean nothing — our towns and factories,
our art, our ideas will all mean nothing, and yet life will not
perish! Only we have perished. Our houses and machines will be in
ruins, our systems will collapse, and the names of our great will fall
away like dry leaves. Only you, love, will blossom on this rubbish
heap and commit the seed of life to the winds." -- Karel Čapek
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karel_%C3%84%C5%92apek)
W. Mark Felt is a former agent and top official of the United States
Federal Bureau of Investigation. After 30 years of denials, Felt
revealed himself in May 2005 to be the Watergate scandal informant
called "Deep Throat." During the early investigation of the Watergate
scandal (1972–74), Felt was the Bureau's Associate Director, the
second-ranking post in the FBI. While Associate Director, Felt
provided Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward with critical leads on
the story that eventually saw the resignation of President Richard M.
Nixon in 1974. In 1980, Felt was convicted of violating the civil
rights of people thought to be associated with the Weather Underground
by ordering FBI agents to burglarize their homes. On May 31, 2005,
Felt was revealed to have been "Deep Throat". His identity as
Woodward's informant was a secret for three decades and had been the
source of much speculation in American political and popular culture.
Felt resides in Santa Rosa, California and has completed an update of
his 1979 autobiography which provides information on his past as "Deep
Throat."
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Mark_Felt
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1198:
Lotario de Conti became Pope Innocent III. His first act was the
restoration of the papal power in Rome.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Innocent_III)
1815:
Andrew Jackson won the Battle of New Orleans two weeks
after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_New_Orleans)
1889:
Herman Hollerith received a patent for his electric tabulating
machine.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Hollerith)
1989:
British Midland Flight 92 crashed onto the embankment of the M1
motorway in the Kegworth air disaster.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegworth_air_disaster)
2004:
RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, was
christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary_2)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals. Then
something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We
learned to talk." -- Stephen Hawking
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking)
The De Lorean DMC-12 was a sports car manufactured by the De Lorean
Motor Company from 1981 until 1983. It is most commonly known as the
De Lorean, as it was the only automobile ever produced by the company.
The DMC-12 featured gull-wing doors with a brushed stainless steel
body. The first prototype was completed in 1979, and the final chassis
was based on the Lotus Esprit. Production officially began in 1981 at
the DMC factory in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. During its production,
several aspects of the car were changed, such as the hood style,
wheels and interior. About 9,200 DMC-12s were made before production
ended in 1983, and as of 2005, 6,000 are estimated to be in existence.
The DMC-12 was famously featured in the Back to the Future trilogy.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Lorean_DMC-12
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1558:
Francis, Duke of Guise retook Calais, England's last
continental posession, for France.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calais)
1785:
Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries became the
first to cross the English Channel by balloon.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Channel)
1927:
The first transatlantic telephone call was made from New York City to
London.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/telephone)
1975:
OPEC raised the price of crude oil by 10 percent.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC)
1979:
Phnom Penh fell to the the People's Army of Vietnam, effectively
ending the Democratic Kampuchea regime.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Kampuchea)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"There is no first world and third world. There is only one world, for
all of us to live and delight in." -- Gerald Durrell
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gerald_Durrell)
A voting system is a process that allows a group of people to express
their desires about a number of options, and selects one or more of
those options as the winner based on the votes. Voting is best known
for its use in democratic elections, in which case the options are
candidates for public office, and the preferences of the citizens
determine who gets to hold those offices. Specifically, a voting
system is a well-defined method (an algorithm) that determines a
winning result given a set of votes. The process must be formally
defined to be considered a voting system; the rules that specify how
the votes will be counted must be known beforehand. This can be
contrasted with consensus decision making, another process for
selecting an option based on people's preferences which, unlike a
voting system, does not specify a precise way to determine the winning
option. Most voting systems are based on the concept of majority rule,
or the principle that a group of more than half of the voters should
be able to get the outcome they want. Given the simplicity of majority
rule, those who are unfamiliar with voting theory are often surprised
that such a variety of voting systems exists.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1661:
Thomas Venner and the Fifth Monarchists unsuccessfully attempted to
seize control of London from the newly restored government of Charles
II.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Monarchists)
1838:
Samuel Morse successfully tested the electrical telegraph for the
first time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/electrical_telegraph)
1907:
Maria Montessori opened her first school and daycare center for
working class children in Rome.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori)
1995:
A suspicious fire in a Manila flat led to the unfoiling of Oplan
Bojinka, a precursor to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oplan_Bojinka)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a
world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom
of speech and expression — everywhere in the world. The second is
freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere
in the world. The third is freedom from want... everywhere in the
world. The fourth is freedom from fear... anywhere in the world. That
is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a
kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. -- Franklin
Delano Roosevelt
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt)
Marilyn Manson is an alternative metal / alternative rock band based
in Hollywood, California. Frequently termed "shock rock", the group's
sound contains influences from heavy metal, industrial rock, and glam.
Formed in 1989 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the band's uniquely
theatrical performances gathered a local cult following that has, over
fifteen years, developed into a worldwide fanbase. Marilyn Manson's
reputation has likewise grown, with the band now considered one of
modern music's most widely-known and most controversial; this has been
due, in large part, to eponymous lead singer Marilyn Manson and his
frequent clashes with religious and political figures. Until 1996, the
name of each band member was created by combining the first name of a
female pop culture icon and the last name of a mass murderer or a
serial killer; the members of the band dress in outlandish makeup and
costumes, and, like their major influences KISS and Alice Cooper, have
engaged in sometimes shocking behavior both onstage and off; the
group's lyrics are rife with anti-religious sentiment and with
references to sex, drugs, and violence.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Manson
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1527:
Felix Manz, a leader of the Anabaptist congregation in Dubček, was
executed by drowning.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Manz)
1895:
Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French military wrongly
accused of treason, was stripped of his rank and sentenced to life
imprisonment on Devil's Island.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Dreyfus)
1933:
Construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge across San Francisco Bay.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Bridge)
1968:
Alexander Dubček came to power in Czechoslovakia, beginning a
political reform known as "Socialism with a human face".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Dub%C4%3Fek)
1970:
The first episode of All My Children was broadcast on the ABC
television network.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_My_Children)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"Evil spreads with the wind; truth is capable of speading even against
it." -- Paramahansa Yogananda
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paramahansa_Yogananda)
Delrina was a Canadian software company based in Toronto, that existed
between 1988 and 1995, prior to being bought by the American software
firm Symantec. Delrina started out by producing a set of electronic
form products known as PerForm and later, FormFlow. However, the
company was best known for its WinFax software package of the early-
to mid-1990s, which enabled computers equipped with fax-modems to
communicate faxes to stand-alone fax machines or other
similarly-equipped computers. Delrina also produced a set of popular
screensavers, including one that resulted in the well-publicized
"flying toasters" lawsuit for copyright and trademark infringement
(Berkeley Systems Inc. v. Delrina); the case set a precedent in
American law that satiric commercial software products were not
subject to the same First Amendment exemptions as parodic cartoons or
literature. After the buyout by Symantec in 1995, parts of the firm
were sold off, while Symantec continues to sell the WinFax product to
this day. In its wake, several of Delrina's former executives founded
venture capital firms that continue to have a lasting impact on the
Canadian software industry.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delrina
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1493:
Christopher Columbus left the New World, ending his first journey.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus)
1698:
Most of the Palace of Whitehall in London, the main residence of the
English monarchs, was destroyed by fire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Whitehall)
1884:
The Fabian Society was founded in London.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society)
1948:
Thakin Nu of the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League presided over
the independence of Burma (now Myanmar) from the British Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Myanmar)
2004:
The NASA Mars Rover Spirit landed successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MER-A)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to
have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting
myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell
than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered
before me." -- Isaac Newton
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton)
Our Friends in the North is a British television drama. A serial
produced by the BBC and originally screened in nine episodes on BBC2
in early 1996, Our Friends tells the story of four friends from the
city of Newcastle in North East England over 31 years from 1964 to
1995. The storyline includes real political and social events both
specific to the north-east and from Britain as a whole during the era
portrayed. The show is commonly regarded as having been one of the
most successful BBC television dramas of the 1990s. It was also a
controversial production in some respects, as the issues and
occurrences upon which its fiction were based involved real
politicians and political events. It took several years before the
production–adapted from a play originally performed by the Royal
Shakespeare Company–finally made it to the screen, due in part to the
BBC's fear that it might become involved in legal action.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Friends_in_the_North
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
366:
The Alamanni crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the
Roman Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamanni)
533:
Mercurius became Pope John II, the first pope to adopt a new name upon
elevation to the papacy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_II)
1492:
Reconquista: Los Reyes Católicos expelled Boabdil of Granada
(pictured), the last of the Moorish rulers, from the Iberian
Peninsula.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista)
1946:
Unable to resume his reign after World War II, King Zog of Albania
abdicated but retained his claim to the throne.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zog_of_Albania)
1949:
Luis Muñoz MarÃn became the first democratically elected Governor of
Puerto Rico.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Mu%C3%B1oz_Mar%C3%ADn)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"How often people speak of art and science as though they were two
entirely different things, with no interconnection...That is all
wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and
knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true
scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes
leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does
not, his science suffers." -- Isaac Asimov
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov)