Forums: Blue Archer

HE was heading for a pan of boiling water, ready to be served up for dinner. But this electric-blue lobster has given scientists food for thought instead because of its colour. The eye-catching crustacean named Lionel was caught by fishermen off Scotland and sent to a London market. Advertisement >> But fishmonger Rex Goldsmith thought he was too beautiful to eat and bought him for a tenner before handing him over to the Natural History Museum. Rex, 45, who saw Lionel at Billingsgate Market while buying supplies for his Chelsea Fishmonger shop, said: “It’s the most striking blue lobster I...

The total of U.S. state debt, including pension liabilities, could surpass $4 trillion, with California owing the most and Vermont owing the least, a new analysis says. The nonprofit State Budget Solutions combined states' major debt and future liabilities, primarily for pensions and employee healthcare, unemployment insurance loans, outstanding bonds and projected fiscal 2011 budget gaps. It found that in total, states are in debt for $4.2 trillion. The group, which follows state fiscal conditions and advocates for limited spending and taxes, said the deficit calculations that states make "do not offer a full picture of the states' liabilities and...

I was in Chicago O'Hare today and saw a cleric dressed in a purple monk's robe (it was NOT a scarlet cassock), and he was wearing a bluish jacket, business cut, with a faint purple sheen to it. He also had a gold colored rope that he wore as a belt, and the tasseled ends were almost touching the ground. He didn't look Roman Catholic, or even Episcopalian. Any idea of what he might belong to? PS, I didn't speak with him... Thanks.

Coalition of Moderate 'Blue Dog' Dems Shrinking FastAssociated Press Published August 19, 2011 WASHINGTON -- The Blue Dogs may be losing their bark. Despite polls showing a desire for more compromise in Washington, the political climate for moderate to conservative Democrats in the House has continued to deteriorate. The 2010 election dropped the number of so-called Blue Dogs from 54 to 25. And the shrinking continues. Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas will not seek re-election next year. Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma also plans to retire. Rep. Joe Donnelly of Indiana has opted to run for the Senate. Rep. Heath...

Our current national debt is more than $14.4 TRILLION dollars and your personal share is more than $246,000! Using $40,000 as an average yearly income, this means our government has eaten through more than six years of our income. If these numbers were the only debt piled on our heads it would be bad enough, unfortunately this $246,000 is only our share of the federal debt. Depending on the state you live in, your indebtedness can be much worse. A new report from the Institute for Truth In Accounting (IFTIA) holds some disturbing news about how deep some states have...

‘Blue Stragglers’ in the Galactic Bulge by Paul Gilster on May 30, 2011 I’m fascinated by how much the exoplanet hunt is telling us about celestial objects other than planets. The other day we looked at some of the stellar spinoffs from the Kepler mission, including the unusual pulsations of the star HD 187091, now known to be not one star but two. But the examples run well beyond Kepler. Back in 2006, a survey called the Sagittarius Window Eclipsing Extrasolar Planet Search (SWEEPS) used Hubble data to study 180,000 stars in the galaxy’s central bulge, the object being...

An 11-year-old boy in Orange, MA is in the middle of flag controversy after he and his family claim one of his teachers banned him from hanging a picture of an American flag he drew in the classroom because it might offend other students. The boy‘s dad is adamant his son’s civil rights were violated. But the school has a different take, and says the prohibition was because the boy disobeyed instruction

Cities Where Things Are Getting Worse By Morgan Brennan, Forbes.com Mar 29, 2011 It’s no secret the U.S. economy has for the past several years been slogging along at a slovenly pace. Hopeful signs of recovery are peeking through in some areas of the country, but many more continue to struggle under the weight of collapsed housing markets and high unemployment. But even California, home to Silicon Valley and Hollywood and once the darling of the housing industry, is no longer feeling golden. Six California cities claim spots on our list of Cities Where The Economy May Get Worse. Riverside...

A great video featuring the first Blue Angels (F8F Bearcats) flying with the current Blue Angels (F/A-18D Hornets). http://www.neptunuslex.com/2010/12/10/good-day-at-the-patch/

"Dozens of American cities throughout the industrial Great Lakes states and Midwest have lost half of their populations over the course of one generation -- places like Cleveland, Youngstown, Detroit, Warren, Buffalo and Flint. This is the first time that so many cities have lost half of their populations in such a short amount of time since the Plague struck Europe in 1348........."

Heath Shuler: Nancy Pelosi ignoring Blue DogsBy JENNIFER EPSTEIN | 2/7/11 9:17 AM EST Centrist Democrats have had “no communication” with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi since the start of the 112th Congress, one of the leaders of the Blue Dog Coalition said Monday. Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), who challenged Pelosi for the leadership spot, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that “there’s been really no communication whatsoever” between his group and the California Democrat. “We still have not had the connection between the Blue Dog members and the leadership.” **SNIP** “We’re not about the ideologues of either political party. We’re...

While the rest of the nation went red in Tuesday's midterm elections, California emerged even bluer. What's going on? The standard answer is that registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans, and that many decline-to-state voters lean Democratic. But there's a more telling reason, one that promises to keep California blue for years. The state's rising numbers of new voters - newly minted immigrant voters, minorities and voters between the ages of 18 and 29 - are overwhelmingly Democratic in their preferences.

RICHMOND - After two straight years of crushing electoral defeats, Virginia Democrats know they need to do something to start winning again - they're just not sure what. Some party leaders and activists say Democrats should keep the focus on the same policies, but also must do a better job of communicating. "I think the problem is the message is not getting out,'' said C. Richard Cranwell, the outgoing chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia. "We've got to overcome the disconnect." Others say Democrats need to concentrate more on policies that Republicans have been advocating: creating jobs and cutting...

Ann Brickley, the Republican candidate in Connecticut’s first congressional district, is electrifying the conservative blogosphere with news that she is behind Congressman John Larson by only seven points in a recent poll. “We’ve been saying for quite some time that the seat is competitive,” Brickley tells Battle ’10. So competitive, in fact, that Larson has actually been campaigning. “He was at the Cromwell River Fest; they said he’s never attended that event as a matter of fact,” says Brickley. If elected, Brickley’s priority would be to “stop all this wasteful spending.” She thinks that the GOP’s “Pledge to America” is...

Crippling debts and deficits are about to make individual states the next casualty of the credit crisis, analyst Meredith Whitney told CNBC. Speaking as her firm, Meredith Whitney Advisory Group, just released a lengthy report on the state of the states, the noted financial analyst compared the looming explosion to the collapse of the financial system in 2008 and 2009. "The similarities between the states and the banks are extreme to the extent that states have been spending dramatically and are leveraged dramatically," she said. "Municipal debt has doubled since 2000, spending has grown way faster than revenues."