Health & Lifestyle

Happy and harmonious Lunar Year of the Dragon 2012!
"Build a School For a Dollar" - In the past 5 years, Jackie's fans have donated over US $90,000 and Jackie has matched this donation for a total of over US $180,000, enough to build 2-3 schools...

Jackie Chan's Diary January 17, 2012 "...a story that I wanted to share with you. Maybe you remember the little boy, Will Shadley, who starred in "The Spy Next Door" with me several years ago. He's twelve years old now and living in California and has been spending a lot of his time doing charity work..."

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Is it "kidnapping" if they are taken away instead of sent back to Australia as AU citizens have requested - "return us to shore in Australia and then remove yourself from our waters"? - Traveling fr one side of globe to the other, armed"Gov. of Japan" ship detains 3 AU citizens while Taiji detains 5 CoveGuardians - Jan. 7, 2012: 14 miles off Australian coast (at the doorstep of their own homeland, of their own country's territory, within the Australian EEZ waters), three Australian citizens from Forest Rescue - Geoffrey Owen Tuxworth (47) of Perth, Simon Peterffy (44) of Bunbury, and Glen Pendlebury (27) of Fremantle - are now detained as prisoners on an armed Japanese ship "Government of Japan" with military personnel in Australian territorial waters. Per Forest Rescue statement - Simon Peterffy said: “We are onboard this ship because our government has failed to uphold its pre-election promise to end whaling in the Southern Ocean”, which sounds quite contrary to what the Chilean government is determined to do (though both Australia and Chile have declared sanctuaries, where whaling is prohibited) -  read more »

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Iran is not Iraq in terms of size as a nation -
Iran - population: 75 million (17th); area: 1,648,195 km2 (18th)
Iraq - population: 30 million (36th); area: 438,317 km2 (50th)

Iran is not Iraq considering their geographic neighbors –
Iran borders with Russia and Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.
Iraq borders with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey.

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Persian Gulf tensions mount as U.S. engages Israel on Iran: Israel has not ruled out a unilateral strike on Iran

January 2, 2012 Huffington Post: The United States will have spent a total of $3.7 trillion on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, costing 225,000 lives and creating 7.8 million refugees, by the time the conflicts end, according to a report released on Wednesday by Brown University.  read more »

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne."

Peace on Earth is a 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon short subject directed by Hugh Harman, about a post-apocalyptic world populated by animals.

*Update Nov. 6, 2011 - "Brazil's Senate passed a landmark reform of the country's land law on Dec. 6, 2011... could spark a new wave of deforestation in the Amazon region"

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These are among the most beautiful photographs ever taken - and the ugliest: aerial images show the damage caused by industrial pollution, but they also capture the striking vivid colours created by toxic waste. "Red mud" bauxite waste from aluminium production containing significant amounts of heavy metal contamination, in Darrow, Louisiana.  read more »

*Update 12 March 2013*
Christopher Swann, a cetacean novice, 'whale whisperer' - dances with whales 'Minkes are the smallest of the great whales but they still grow to a length of 30ft and weigh 7 tons... Orcas, or killer whales, are 8-ton sea monsters with dorsal fins like dinghy sails - lords of the sea at the top of the food chain, gladiatorial figures in black shining armour, cleaving the waves with dorsal fins as symbolic as the scythe of the Grim Reaper.’ Swann once followed a group of killers for 14 hours. Food and drink were irrelevant. The sun scorched his eyes and he felt himself drawn irresistibly into their world. 'As would happen many times there-after,’ he says, 'I simply became a whale.’
*Update 22 October 2012*
Listen: Beluga whale 'makes human-like sounds Researchers in the US have been shocked to discover a beluga whale whose vocalisations were remarkably close to human speech. While dolphins have been taught to mimic the pattern and durations of sounds in human speech, no animal has spontaneously tried such mimicry. "Our observations suggest that the whale had to modify its vocal mechanics in order to make the speech-like sounds," said Sam Ridgway, president of the National Marine Mammal Foundation and lead author on the paper. "The sounds we heard were clearly an example of vocal learning by the white whale."
*Update March 09, 2012* - 30 Dolphins stranded in Brazil and incredibly saved! Extremely rare event!


Robin Williams with dolphins in the wild  read more »

O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest—
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:—
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never:
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

- William Wordsworth