Madame Butterfly

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Posts posted by Madame Butterfly

  2. Posted

    Isn't the screen shot information about users you provided available on the home page, upper right hand corner, under statistcs? :)

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    I do not understand what you mean. Please rephrase your question.

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    Go to the home page of this site.

     

    Look in the upper right hand corner, below the STF banner.

     

    There is a spot that lists STATISTICS

     

    In that area is how many guests, how many members, how many anonymous users, and then a list of those who are members and are logged in.

     

     

    How is the list in the screen shot Wally provided different from the one on the home screen for this site?

  8. Posted

    Updated: 10:09 AM EDT

    Man Takes Citizenship Oath, Wins Lottery

    'Only in America,' Owner of $1.89 Million Winning Ticket Says

     

    DES MOINES, Iowa (Sept. 27) - A man who immigrated from Kenya to the United States found prosperity beyond his expectations on the day he became a U.S. citizen.

     

     

    Shortly after Moses Bittok, of West Des Moines, took the oath of citizenship on Friday, he discovered he had a $1.89 million winning ticket from the Iowa Lottery's Hot Lotto game.

     

    "It's almost like you adopted a country and then they netted you $1.8 million,'' Bittok said Monday as he cashed in his ticket. "It doesn't happen anywhere - I guess only in America.''

     

    Bittok said he took the citizenship oath at the federal building in Des Moines Friday then went shopping with his family. They stopped at a gas station to check his lottery ticket from the Sept. 21 drawing.

     

     

    "It's almost like you adopted a country and then they netted you $1.8 million."

    -Moses Bittok

     

    "For some reason, I'm calm,'' he said. His wife, Leonida, screamed.

     

    Bittok, 40, an officer at the Iowa Correctional Institute for Women in Mitchellville, said he doesn't know exactly what he will do with his winnings, but a college fund for the couples 4-year-old daughter, Mindy, is top priority.

     

    Bittok chose to receive his winnings in 25 annual payments of about $52,920 after taxes.

     

    He came to the U.S. to attend college in Minnesota, then moved to Iowa to take the job at the women's prison.

     

    He had purchased the winning ticket at a West Des Moines grocery store, where he once worked part time.

     

    Hot Lotto tickets are sold in Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, South Dakota and West Virginia.

     

     

    09/27/05 04:07 EDT

  11. Posted

    Turn down the lights, turn down the bed

    Turn down these voices inside my head

    Lay down with me, tell me no lies

    Just hold me close, don't patronize - don't patronize me

     

    Cause I can't make you love me if you don't

    You can't make your heart feel something it won't

    Here in the dark, in these final hours

    I will lay down my heart and I'll feel the power

    But you won't, no you won't

    'Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't

     

     

    I'll close my eyes, then I won't see

    The love you don't feel when you're holding me

    Morning will come and I'll do what's right

    Just give me till then to give up this fight

    And I will give up this fight

     

    Cause I can't make you love me if you don't

    You can't make your heart feel something it won't

    Here in the dark, in these final hours

    I will lay down my heart and I'll feel the power

    But you won't, no you won't

    'Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't

     

    ~Bonnie Raitt

    "I Can't Make You Love Me"

  13. Posted

    Tapping Archaeology to Seek the Cosmic Rosetta Stone

     

    By Douglas Vakoch

    SETI Institute

    posted: 22 September 2005

    7:00 a.m. ET

     

     

    The images are vivid, capturing the essence of exploration. Archaeologists digging up the remains of long lost civilizations. Anthropologists encountering exotic cultures with strange languages.

     

     

     

    But do archaeologists and anthropologists have anything to teach the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), where encounters are at the distance of light-years, and a round-trip exchange could take millennia?

     

     

     

    “Absolutely!” was the resounding response at a conference held last year of the American Anthropological Association. One of the best-attended sessions of that meeting consisted of papers from leading scholars who pondered the daunting challenges of reconstructing alien civilizations – at interstellar distances.

     

     

     

    A month earlier, in November 2004, many of the same scientists had gathered at the SETI Institute for a symposium fittingly called “In Search of a Cosmic Rosetta Stone,” a reference to the slab of basalt that provided the key to decoding Egyptian hieroglyphics.

     

     

     

    Analogies of Contact

     

     

     

    “The approaches we take as archaeologists in our search for peoples from another time and place may well offer some useful analogy to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence,” suggested archaeologist Paul Wason, one of the participants. “Our work is conducted without the benefit of direct contact with living beings,” he observed, which is akin to SETI’s attempt to detect intelligence around distant stars.

     

     

     

    But how can analogies help us anticipate contact with extraterrestrials?

     

     

     

    For starters, by providing a case study of Homo sapiens encountering an alien intelligence, Wason explained. “The meeting of Neanderthals and sapiens may be a good example for analogy—for it was a meeting of two different kinds of consciousness,” he added.

     

     

     

    But be forewarned as we start to draw lessons for SETI from such encounters, Wason urged. The analogy may be humbling.

     

     

     

    “It may be that in such a comparison of us with ETI, …we are the Neanderthals,” he said.

     

     

     

    Our Place in the Universe

     

     

     

    And yet, isn’t all of this work premature? Shouldn’t we wait until at least knowing that intelligence exists beyond Earth?

     

     

     

    Psychologist Albert Harrison didn’t think so. He argued that as we contemplate contact with other worlds, we have an opportunity to gain a better perspective on ourselves.

     

     

     

    “Planned efforts to communicate beyond Earth should force us to step back and look at the big picture,” said Harrison, a professor at the University of California at Davis. “Deciding what might be important for another civilization forces us to move beyond our pathologically narrow time span and develop a long term perspective.”

     

     

     

    Even if we never make contact, Harrison observed, we might reap significant benefits by pondering these issues now.

     

     

     

    “Determining what we should say and who should say it could be a useful self-study that fosters self-contemplation and encourages consensus,” Harrison noted. “These deliberations should encourage us to think about what makes us human, where we are going, and how we conceive of our place in the universe."

  14. Posted

    600 barrels of loot found on Crusoe island

     

    Jonathan Franklin in Santiago

    Monday September 26, 2005

    The Guardian

     

     

    The archipelago is named after Robinson Crusoe, but perhaps it should have been called Treasure Island.

    A long quest for booty from the Spanish colonial era appears to be culminating in Chile with the announcement by a group of adventurers that they have found an estimated 600 barrels of gold coins and Incan jewels on the remote Pacific island.

     

    "The biggest treasure in history has been located," said Fernando Uribe-Etxeverria, a lawyer for Wagner, the Chilean company leading the search. Mr Uribe-Etxeverria estimated the value of the buried treasure at US$10bn (£5.6bn).

     

     

     

     

    The announcement set off ownership claims. The treasure hunters claimed half the loot was theirs and said they would donate it to non-profit-making organisations. The government said that they had no share to donate.

    It also prompted speculation about the contents of what is considered to be one of the great lost treasures from the Spanish looting of South America. Chilean newspapers were filled with reports that the stash includes 10 papal rings and original gold statues from the Incan empire.

     

    The hoard is supposedly buried 15 metres (50ft) deep on Robinson Crusoe island, also known as the Juan Fernández island, home to Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, the adventurer immortalised by Daniel Defoe as Robinson Crusoe. Selkirk was dumped on the island and lived alone for four years before being rescued. His exploits brought worldwide attention to the islands.

     

    For centuries treasure hunters have scoured the island in search of booty which was reportedly buried there in 1715 by Spanish sailor Juan Esteban Ubilla y Echeverria. Using everything from old Spanish ship manifests to teams of islanders with shovels and picks, foreigners have made so many claims of discovering the lost treasure that islanders are usually sceptical of the proclamations.

     

    This most recent announcement, however, deserves greater credence because of the equipment used by the treasure hunters: a mini robot that can scan 50 metres deep into the earth. The robot, dubbed "Arturito", was invented by Chileans and over the past year has grabbed headlines by breaking some of the country's biggest criminal mysteries.

     

    First, the robot detected the buried arsenal of a rightwing sect known as Colonia Dignidad. The guns and rocket launchers were buried at some 10 metres and while the authorities had searched for years, the robot found the buried weapons almost instantly. Then, in the case of missing businessman Jose Yuraszeck, Arturito was able to analyse the soil and identify the molecular composition of human bones, allowing investigators to dig straight to the body of the murder victim.

  15. Posted

    I love Python.

     

    I can remember when church was telling my older siblings not to go see "Life of Brian".

     

    They did, of course, go to see it with my parents!!! :)

     

    That is one of my favorite Python's.

     

    When together, we often quote Python shows and movies, mostly in high pitched voices.

     

    "It's only a flesh wound"

  16. Posted

    "Shannon" was by the songwriter Henry Gross.  He sang it. 

     

    Still recommend "Old Shep".

     

    Sir Paul, to date, has not released any animal rights' music, to my knowledge. 

     

    How about "Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron?  :)

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    I came across that on a 45 this summer while helping my Mom clean out the basement!! :)

  21. Posted

    I strongly disagree. Politics sex and religion should be discussed here as well as anything else. If you don't want to join the discussion, simply don't open the thread.

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    I have to agree with this.

     

    Some people get way into proving their side of the argument instead of exchanging ideas freely without judgment, but just put them on your "ignore" list.

  23. Posted · Edited by Madame Butterfly

    I was in school band and orchestra for years, with playing flute, violin and piano.

     

    After a time it wasn't "cool" to keep playing, even though I most likely could have made a career out of violin. Nothing grand mind you, but in belonging to a professional orchestra.

     

    Now my brother, who played saxaphone in his school days is in a surf band in California, playing key boards. :) :) They all "reunited" just recently, as many job changes and expanding families put the kabosh on the band for a time.

     

    You can buy their albums on amazon, which I find kinda cool! :sus:

     

    take a peek