Moments of Awareness

We listen to music and talk to people. Watch on cable channel 11 in the Boise area or on-line at  TVCTVOnline.org . Watch previous shows  here , and check out the backgrounds  here . Also featuring TVCTV Kids Kamp video from Scotty Leaton and Minecraft VC from Trevnyah . Bands listed at  reverbnation.com   Posted via email from Moments of Awareness

I recommend the view around 14:46. It's the best shot we had of Mr. Wizard for the evening, and it didn't make it into the show. :) (He preempted himself to allow for play-by-play of Dude's GTA IV hooker search. :D) Posted via email from Moments of Awareness

From: Maha Yoga Date: Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 6:16 PM Maha Yoga | Maha Yoga | 13050 San Vicente Blvd | Suite 202 | Los Angeles | CA | 90049 Posted via email from Moments of Awareness

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Until now, the screw-and-nut system was thought to be a human innovation. But a  new study  reports that it exists in nature, in the legs of the Papuan weevil. Researchers in Germany report their discovery in the journal Science. Generally, the three joints of an insect leg have the mechanics of a hinge. In the weevil, however, the coxa-trochanteral joint, equivalent to the hip joint in humans, appears to [...] Full article at  nytimes.com   Posted via email from Moments of Awareness

The town of Cornelius, Colo. has found that a new pilot program replacing paper with iPads is saving the administration money, time and helping the environment along with increasing government transparency, according to the  Huntersville Herald . Cornelius Mayor Jeff Tarte and the town’s five commissioners were each issued an iPad 2 recently, paid for by the town, which they premiered at the town’s board meeting on Monday, June 20. [...] Full article at nytimes.com   Posted via email from Moments of Awareness

Ramsey County Judge Kathleen Gearin rules that only critical core functions of state funding will continue pending the state shut-down on Friday. She allowed for most of the services recommended by Governor Mark Dayton to remain in effect. Basic care would still be provided for Minnesotan’s in prisons, nursing homes and veterans homes, but she did feel some editing was needed. According to court documents released this morning, the United States of America Attorney General’s criteria to define core or essential government services is: Those services providing for National Security Those services providing for benefit payments in the performance of contract, and Those services providing for conducting essential activities to the extent that they protect life and property This means that police and other emergency responders will remain. The welfare system and housing systems currently in use will also remain, however it has not been made clear if new applican...

Despite numerous breaches of arms embargoes and continued threats to expand its nuclear weapons program, North Korea has assumed the presidency of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament. In a speech to the 65-nation arms control forum in Geneva, the newly-appointed president, North Korean Ambassador So Se Pyong, said he was “very much committed to the Conference.”  Appointing a North Korean to chair the UN’s only multilateral disarmament forum is like “asking the fox to guard the chickens,” says Hillel Neuer, of the UN watchdog organization UN Watch. Neuer is calling on the U.S. and European governments to protest the appointment, which he says, “damages the UN’s credibility.” When asked about the controversy over North Korea’s new leadership role, UN spokesman Farhan Haq pointed out that the head of the Conference on Disarmament is selected by the member states that sit on the conference, not the UN secretary general. Haq added that when Secretary General...

OK- here we go.. Tonight- @ The Curb 6 pm Thur- @ Seasons in Eagle 6:30 (also heade into the studio earlier in the day to start the new CD YEA!) Friday @ Embers in Joseph,Or. 7pm Sat performing @ a Wedding in Joseph Sunday Birthday party @ 2 in Imnaha, Or. Sunday night at 7 Terminal Gravity  Enterprise, Or. As Dave Manion said....Monday=Fireworks, rest and cold ones. Enjoy the weekend all. jb Posted via email from Moments of Awareness

Sunscreens prevent sunburns, but beyond that simple fact surprisingly little is known about the safety and efficacy of these ubiquitous creams and sprays. FDA’s failure to finalize its 1978 sunscreen safety standards both epitomizes and perpetuates this state of confusion. EWG’s review of the latest research unearthed troubling facts that might tempt you to give up on sunscreens altogether. That’s not the right answer – despite the unknowns about their efficacy, public health agencies still recommend using sunscreens, just not as your first line of defense against the sun. At EWG we use sunscreens, but we look for shade, wear protective clothing and avoid the noontime sun before we smear on the cream. Here are the surprising facts: 1. There’s no consensus on whether sunscreens prevent skin cancer. The Food and Drug Administration’s 2007 draft sunscreen safety regulations say: “FDA is not aware of data demonstrating that sunscreen use a...

An American crow. CREDIT: stock.xchng View full size image The common crow knows when you're out to get him — and he's likely to teach his friends and family to watch out for you, a new study finds. In results that can only be described as Hitchcockian, researchers in Seattle who trapped and banded crows for five years found that those birds don't forget a face . Even after going for a year without seeing the threatening human, the crows would scold the person on sight, cackling, swooping and dive-bombing in mobs of 30 or more. "Most of the birds that are scolding us are not the ones we captured," said study researcher John Marzluff, a professor of wildlife science at the University of Washington and an occasional victim of crow attacks. "It's likely that they're learning [...] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can follow LiveScience   senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas . Follow LiveScience for the late...

On Friday, June 24th, Afrykayn Moon stood waiting in line for the 11:50am 275 SMART Bus from Meijer in Taylor, Michigan (outside Detroit) north to Pontiac. While she waited for the hour long bus ride, Moon quietly nursed her two week old son in a football hold, supported by her Moby Wrap. With her, she had two car seats for the ride, a stroller, and her three year old daughter. As the SMART bus pulled up, the others waiting in line before her boarded. She approached the bus, and the driver, Darcell, looked at Moon with a puzzled look. "What IS that?!" she asked. "What is that you're holding that way?! I know that's not a baby..." she said to Moon, leaning over for a better look.  "Ah... is that a titty?!" Darcell shrieked. "Yes," Moon replied. "That is my son. I am feeding my son." "You're going to have to cover that up!" Darcell ordered Moon, who continued to nurse as she helped her three year old on...

During the new DC Comics Universe series " Flashpoint ," in which a time-traveling supervillain alters the past to warp the present, Life's Little Mysteries presents a 10-part series that examines what would happen if a major event in the history of the universe had gone just slightly different. Part 7: What if ... Earth were twice as big? [...] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Head to Newsarama.com for complete  Flashpoint coverage. Full article at  lifeslittlemysteries.com   Posted via email from Moments of Awareness

Map of the Earth made in 1893 by Orlando Ferguson of Hot Springs, South Dakota. CREDIT: Don Homuth View full size image In 1893, Orlando Ferguson, a real estate developer based in South Dakota, drew a map of the Earth that combined biblical and scientific knowledge in a unique way. The map accompanied a 92-page lecture that Ferguson — referring to himself as a "professor" — delivered in town after town, traveling far and wide to share his theory of geography, highlighted by his belief that the Earth was flat. Ferguson's map represents the Earth as a giant, rectangular slab with a dimpled upper surface. Don Homuth of Salem, Ore., just donated one of two intact copies of the map to the Library of Congress. [ See the map ] "It's very fragile. It's printed on tissue paper and hand-colored with watercolors," Homuth said. He got the map from his eighth grade history teacher in Fargo, N.D., who got it from his grandfather...

The northern long-eared bat, left, and the eastern small-footed bat might be endangered species. (CNN) -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has begun the first steps toward determining whether two species of cave-dwelling bats warrant federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. The service announced Tuesday that a more thorough investigation into the status of eastern small-footed and northern long-eared species of bats will be conducted to determine whether the species can be added to the federal list of endangered and threatened wildlife. Eastern small-footed bats are more common in the northern than in the southern United States while the northern long-eared bats occur across the eastern and north-central United States and throughout the Canadian provinces, officials said in a news statement. [...] Full article at  cnn.com   Posted via email from Moments of Awareness

BEIJING — Shortly after they met, Wu Zheng shocked her girlfriend, Charlene Lee, by kissing her on a Beijing street. “I said, ‘What, you do that here?’ I’m from Singapore, and we’re conservative. There is that constant fear,” recalled Ms. Lee, 30. “I felt it was no problem,” said Ms. Wu, 30, a native Beijinger, grinning at Ms. Lee as she stirred a bloody mary in a cafe. It wasn’t. Lesbians in China today are remarkably free, the result of profound social changes over three decades of fast economic growth, and of being female in a society that values men far above women. Invisibility provides lesbians with room to live and love amid the anonymity of China’s millions-strong megacities. “I think people are more tolerant of female gays than male gays,” said Li Yinhe, a sociologist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “China is a very patriarchal society, so people feel if a man is gay th...

BOISE -- A six-story mountaintop cross whose 2,100 watts of white light have illuminated the Boise night since 1956 is going green -- and getting brighter. A group that owns the cross atop Table Rock is replacing its electricity-devouring fluorescent tubes with 2,600 individual energy-efficient LED lights that will cut the power bill from about $60 monthly to just $20. [...] Full article at  ktvb.com   Posted via email from Moments of Awareness

Don Dietrich doesn’t overreact when he gets emails calling him a traitor or a dupe opening the way for an invasion of Idaho by Chinese Communists. “Given what they’re reading, they are rightfully concerned,” said Dietrich, director of the Idaho Department of Commerce. “But what they are reading is in some cases nonsense.” Much of the attention stems from what he told the Statesman a year ago, just before Gov. Butch Otter led a trade mission to China. The state has been looking for foreign investment to boost the economy here, and there is one foreign country with more investment potential than all the others. “The Chinese are looking for a beachhead in the United States,” Dietrich said then. The quote got a new life on the Internet starting six months later, when the Statesman wrote about a proposal to develop a technology zone south of the Boise Airport, broached with state and city officials in December by representatives o...

T he Idaho Department of Fish and Game has a wide-ranging mission and a finite source of funding. The agency bears the responsibility for managing all of the state’s wildlife, not just the sport species avidly pursued by hunters and anglers. In the short run, Fish and Game is bracing for reduced federal funding — and the agency faces a more pervasive long-range challenge. Hunter and angler numbers are dropping nationally. Licenses and tags provide the bread-and-butter funding source for an agency that doesn’t receive a dime of general fund tax money. As license and tag sales go, so goes Fish and Game’s funding. Here are the national trends looming on the horizon: Æ From 1996 to 2006, angler numbers dropped from 35 million to 30 million. [...] Full article at  idahostatesman.com   Posted via email from Moments of Awareness

Are we living in a new age of Nero? The Roman emperor, of course, was infamous for fiddling while Rome burned. Historian Barbara Tuchman quoted the phrase “Neroism is in the air” to describe German attitudes prior to World War I. This implied not just a certain feckless disregard for looming danger, but a willingness on the part of some to openly tempt fate. One prime example today is the U.S. electorate’s blithe unconcern about deteriorating economic prospects in Europe and China. Another is our politicians’ willingness to play economic chicken with the national debt ceiling. Start with Europe. Why should we here in the United States worry about whether Greece defaults or the euro system self-destructs? The answer is that the world financial system is so integrated that a major financial crisis in Europe inevitably will spill over into U.S. financial institutions. And the U.S. financial system is no more robust than it was in the spring of 2007. C...

With the star power of legends such as LeBron, Wade and Dirk, this year's NBA Finals promise to feature a few classic moments. In these playoffs alone, LeBron has dispelled the myth — and awful perception bias — that he's "unclutch" by becoming the alpha dog during the waning stages of close games against the Bulls and Celtics, his team's biggest possible impediments to reaching the championship round. Wade has proven his worth before, particularly when he guided the Heat from a 0-2 hole to defeat the Mavs in the 2006 Finals. The efficiency at which Dirk scores, whether it's in the first quarter or fourth quarter, is astounding — his FG/3pt/FT percentages during the playoffs are .509/.515/.934. Each of these guys deserves to be discussed with the all-time greats. Inevitably, this or year or in the future , their late-game heroics will appear on lists (like this one) highlighting the most memorable shots in Finals history. In the meantime, take a stroll d...

A federal appeals panel handed Georgia a victory Tuesday by overturning a lower court ruling that would have significantly restricted the main source of water for roughly 3 million people in metro Atlanta starting next year. The decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sets aside a nearly two-year-old ruling that communities in metro Atlanta had little legal right to take drinking water from Lake Lanier. In that lower court ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson said he would sharply restrict water withdrawals from the lake starting in July 2012 unless the governors in Georgia, Alabama and Florida reached a deal to end a long-running water feud. No deal has been reached, though the governors were meeting on Tuesday. Magnuson admitted his order was a "draconian result" because it restricted water use from Lake Lanier to levels last seen in the 1970s, when the metro region was a fraction of the size. The appeals panel sent the case back to the U.S...

From: paul peterson Date: Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 8:59 AM Hey Everybody!      I'm now in the SF Bay area, and my new band "Twin City Slim & The Feral Cats" will be playing our debut gig on Friday July 1st, and releasing our Brand new Blues CD "Keepin' You Up All Night'. It's my 8th CD release since 2000, featuring 13 originals, and 4 smokin' covers of Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Freddie King and Junior Walker tunes. I recorded it in Boise, with a veteran Boise Blues Icon, Richard Soliz on guitar and bass, a 19 year old Po O'Hara on guitar and drums, and Jesh hubbard (24) on drums.      It's a drive for some of you to make it to Campbell CA, but we'd love to see you there on July 1st!   Paul Peterson 'Twin City Slim' See the full gallery on Posterous Posted via email from Moments of Awareness

Two new studies have linked drinking diet soda to poorer health compared with those who don't drink the beverage. People who said they drank two or more diet sodas a day experienced waist size increases that were six times greater than those of people who didn't drink diet soda, according to researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. A second study that found the sweetener aspartame raised blood sugar levels in diabetes-prone mice. "Data from this and other prospective studies suggest that the promotion of diet sodas and artificial sweeteners as healthy alternatives may be ill-advised," said study researcher Helen P. Hazuda, professor and at the university's school of medicine. "They may be free of calories, but not of consequences." [...] Full article at  news.yahoo.com   Posted via email from Moments of Awareness

The nation's second largest school district made a controversial decision concerning the most often despised part of school: homework. Beginning July 1, students in the Los Angeles Unified School District will likely spend significantly less time on homework each week thanks to a new policy that says homework assignments can account for no more than 10% of a students' final grade. The policy states that while "homework is a formative tool for practice toward mastery, ... studies have shown that by limiting the weight of homework towards a student's academic grade, a truer picture of the student's knowledge will be reflected in the achievement grade." With the bold move, L.A. Unified joins an increasing list of school districts nationwide who have placed limits on the amount of homework assigned to students so those kids can spend more time with their families, on extracurricular activities , sports and hobbies. [...] Full article at news...

The San Andreas Fault is overdue for "the big one," and the efforts by humans to control flooding in the area could be the reason for the recent lull in temblors, a new study suggests. Ancient floods once helped unleash earthquakes on the San Andreas , a group of researchers has found. The southern portion of the fault has not experienced a large earthquake for about 300 years, though, which makes one long overdue — the previous five major earthquakes in the region occurred at approximately 180-year intervals. Over the past century, humans have put in place measures to control floods in the region to protect property and infrastructure, which the researchers say might explain the quake lull. Flooding possibly fueled faults To investigate both the cause of these earthquakes and the current lull in them, scientists probed the locale where the southern San Andreas Fault ends, the Salton Sea , currently the largest lake in California. [...] Full article at n...

If you find it hard to stick to a strict diet, here’s some good news: Breaking the rules could actually help you slim down—and keep the pounds off over the long term. A study published in International Journal of Obesity found that dieters with a flexible strategy that allowed for sweets and other indulgences were significantly more successful at maintaining weight loss during the three-year study than those who strived for rigid control of their eating habits. That’s because the rigid control group typically had an “all or nothing” mindset. As a result, they yo-yoed between shunning all goodies—including their favorite foods—and falling off the diet wagon completely. Flexible dieters, on the other hand, deemed it good enough to “more or less” follow their weight loss plan, without letting slip-ups escalate into eating binges. But which rules are okay to break without sabotaging your diet? NSCA-certified conditioning coach ...

From: Josh Ritter Date: Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 6:24 AM Bright's Passage is in bookstores in the US and Canada today!  It's also available at all the usual on-line retailers.  Thanks to everyone who has pre-ordered the book, you guys are awesome! * * * * * Buy the hardcover: ( Amazon -- BN.com -- IndieBound ) Buy the e-book: ( Amazon -- BN -- iBook ) * * * * * We hope everyone in the NYC AREA will come down to the Barnes & Noble at Union Square this evening to say hi and hear Josh read from the book and sing a few songs.  It starts at 7pm, get there early to ensure entry.  You do NOT need to purchase a book to come to this event. Thanks and see you out there this summer! * * * * * List of tour dates : Jun 28 New York, NY | Union Square Barnes & Noble FREE EVENT!  7pm sharp.  Upstairs at the Square hosted by Katherine Lanpher – Bright’s Passage reading, Q&A & signing & short performance. Jun 29 Boston, MA | Brookline Booksmith at C...