Official Skatz 10 Million Views Thread

[Khalid El-Amin]

Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by Taliban, is being sent to Britain for medical treatment, military says.

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[Big Gay Al]

Minnie [redux]
Steve and Krissy say: Minnie is a purr-box whose loves include having her paws massaged, chewing on her people's freshly showered feet, and drinking fresh water (older than an hour is too old for her). She enjoys chasing remote-controlled cars and sprinting across the room spontaneously. Probably her favorite activity is playing fetch with coffee stir sticks. She went crazy when we dropped one accidentally and she flipped it all around the house. Now we throw them down the hall and she pounces on them and then carries them back for more play. She likes to jump at flying socks and will hide at the end of the hall when we are doing laundry waiting for us to throw some to her. She has actually caught socks midair with some ninja cat twist. Minnie is definitely an alpha hunter -- I pity the prey in her world. She is a backup alarm clock and pounces on us if we don't get up on time. She lives exclusively indoors as we live on a busy street.
Courtesy of: Steve A. and Krissy A.


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[CardPlayer]

Daniel Negreanu’s vitriol directed at former Full Tilt Poker owner Howard Lederer was back in action Sunday morning. Negreanu expressed sentiment that has been at times visible in cyberspace since ...

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[Carl Culture]

Namgyal Tsemo Gompa ::: Brane Zalar ::: Namgyal Tsemo Gompa was founded in the early 15th century, around the year 1430. It stands atop the crag behind Leh palace, having a full view of the town of Leh. And because of this position, it offers some of the most splendid visuals of the town. The Namgyal Tsemo Gompa of Ladakh was founded by King Tashi Namgyal and has been named after him only. It boasts of a rich collection of some ancient manuscripts and wall paintings.

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[Suicide King's Tattoos]

United Russia leader Dmitry Medvedev has congratulated party members over the victory in all the municipal elections held on Sunday, and reminded them of their obligations to the voters and political allies.
Read Full Article at RT.com

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[Carl Culture]

Boom Town Week continues with this fine picture of San Francisco, California. The picture was taken in about 1850. It is hard to imagine that San Francisco was ever this sparsely populated. If you click on the picture you can see some interesting detail in the scene.






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[Carl Culture]

This Month in Photo of the Day: National Geographic Magazine Features

A female kestrel brings food to her nestlings on a cliff on Socotra's southern coast. These falcons, along with other raptors like the Socotra buzzard, are the main land predators on the island.

See more pictures from the June 2012 feature story "Where the Weird Things Are."


Download bird wallpapers »
See pictures of birds of prey »




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[Adolf Hitler]

Forum: Newslinks & Articles Posted By: NationalCrusader14 Post Time: 10-15-2012 at 09:02 AM

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[NASA]

This image shows where NASA\'s Curiosity rover aimed two different instruments to study a rock known as \"Jake Matijevic.\" The red dots in the annotated version are where the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument zapped it with its laser on Sept. 21, 2012, and Sept. 24, 2012, which were the 45th and 48th sol, or Martian day of operations. The circular black and white images were taken by ChemCam to look for the pits produced by the laser. The purple circles indicate where the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer trained its view.

This image was obtained by Curiosity\'s Mast Camera on Sept. 21, 2012 PDT (Sept. 22 UTC), or sol 46.

Scientists white-balanced the color in this view to increase the inherent differences visible within the rock.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

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[NASA]

IC 5148 is a beautiful planetary nebula located some 3000 light-years away in the constellation of Grus (The Crane). The nebula has a diameter of a couple of light-years, and it is still growing at over 50 kilometers per second — one of the fastest expanding planetary nebulae known. The term “planetary nebula” arose in the 19th century, when the first observations of such objects — through the small telescopes available at the time — looked somewhat like giant planets. However, the true nature of planetary nebulae is quite different.

When a star with a mass similar to or a few times more than that of our Sun approaches the end of its life, its outer layers are thrown off into space. The expanding gas is illuminated by the hot remaining core of the star at the center, forming the planetary nebula, which often takes on a beautiful, glowing shape.

When observed with a smaller amateur telescope, this particular planetary nebula shows up as a ring of material, with the star — which will cool to become a white dwarf — shining in the middle of the central hole. This appearance led astronomers to nickname IC 5148 the Spare Tire Nebula.

The ESO Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera (EFOSC2) on the New Technology Telescope at La Silla gives a somewhat more elegant view of this object. Rather than looking like a spare tire, the nebula resembles ethereal blossom with layered petals.

Credit: ESO

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