What the shroud looks like to me (of Turin).

Figure in shroud is wearing a prayer shawl. It can't be his hair, unless it's Rastafarian like hair matting gone wild and matted the entire head of hair into one ragged piece.

The person looked sort of like Frank Zappa with swollen,black eyes, and one swollen shut. There appears to be side locks present and very bushy facial hair.mustache, beard, sideburns.

And also seems to be a rather attractive individual, but to see it takes splitting the face in two and combining each side into new faces. Under the one below. Right side combined then left side combined.

There is some sort of object on the front of his head above his forehead, can't make it out though.

How to save newspapers and print media in general - stop printing it! Seriously

Take a look at this "new in 2007" product.

http://www.geckoandfly.com/2007/05/17/lgphilips-paper-thin-lcd/

Now imagine that product with a super small wifi receiver embedded in that "tabloid sized" literally paper-thin LCD that you can bend and fold!

If you imagined correctly you saw what could be a great way to replaces "newsprint" as the MOD of newspapers, that would put newspapers in the digital mix. Magazines too could take advantage of this. Subcribers would receive a LCD paper when they subscribed, that would update its content with each publication.

New issues could be sent as easily as we send a text msg.

Such an advance would bring the price down of these gadgets tremendously pretty quickly, and make doing that inexpensive.

The benefits once if it were to be implemented successfully would soon be obvious.

• No more newsprint costs

• No more magazine postal fees

• No more delivery expenses

• Home subscribers would get wifi to the newsLCD for their paid subscription

• Street sales umm, put your 50 cents in the stand and you get your personal newsLCD updated instantly, Perhaps it could be sold like kindal by Amazon. However, since the motive would be to sell the newspaper/magazine it wouldn't have to cost hundreds, but be more in line with the price of a subscription.
  

• Newspapers could once again become "cutting edge, up to the minute" reporters of the news, even beat the internet for a change, because reporters could instantly update their stories via wifi, and breaking stories could hit the streets as they happen all made possible by a wifi equipped Paper thin News LCD (no longer newspapers).

• Once in place, the ability to stream video - just like a cell phone - could mean another way to leverage this technology into a completely new revenue stream.

• This could give newspapers their sense of identity back, by creating a 'dedicated product" with a "format" distinct from a laptop and computer strictly meant for getting the news.

• It would help return a sense of individuality to dailies now lost in news aggregate sites. and through that a return newspapers and print media a sense of importance unique to itself, clearly tying the news people now think comes from Google to its real, hard working source.

Of course that's just a mock up, but as a geek in every sense of the word, making this happen isn't that hard, especially since the savings to the bottom line is tremendous.

Why nothing like this is on the horizon, nor anything else like it I'd assume is due to the utter lack of "tech group savvy" among upper management of the newspaper industry (Murdoch excepted LOL).

Maureen Dowd - the Benidict Arnold of Women

To find one good reason why the fight for equality between the sexes is struggling one needs to do the unexpected, look within the group to find the traitors whose success is based on their efforts to diminish and attacks other successful women. In doing so they perform the task they are hired for and that's to provide an invincible shield to the misogynists who hired them.

The best example is M. Dowd. All to happy to fulfill her function as a shield, because in many respects her opinions are as misogynistic as her bosses. Certainly if a member of the opposite sex said some of the things she said, they'd be fired.

Her attacks on fellow women, especially HRC starting in the 90s, when Bill began his run for the presidency are/were often attacks rooted in the fact that she as a candidate did not match up to the standards this society has created to identify "a proper looking female politician." HRC wasn't pretty enough, sexy enough, thin enough. Since she wasn't painfully thin like Jackie O, Dowd felt compelled to push her away.

For Dowd, HRC represented everything about the female body, she has been brainwashed to loathe and despise.

Of course Dowd is no idiot. Her loathing was expressed in stunningly blind double standard judgments she renders re: other women. That loathing expresses itself in criticisms of other women that are excessively brutal, hypocritically judgmental, unforgiving and absolute.

In HRC's case, she expressed these feelings with slanderous, long proven false charges of her being a liar, deceiver, double dealer and her proof over time is how willing HRC has been to be the doormat for her horn dog husband, thus making HRC in her eyes the ultimate feminist hypocrite.

Men guilty of similar behavior don't merit the same sort of reprobation. Dowd and her ilk do , because they are women and want to be seen as spokespeople for women's views and be seen as good examples of successful women.

Thanks to her self-hatred the result though is not balance, but betrayal as her words become the voice of misogyny in society.

Also as sad for the Dowd and her Ilk is their inability, unwillingness to control their hormone directed impulse.

Yes they were aware of them, and how they influenced their feelings, but rather than stepping back and forcing themselves to look at the candidates more objectively, they gave in willingly, excitedly as if they had been seduced. Of course this is justified, because male commentators do it automatically. Yes they do, but two wrongs don't make a right, and imitating them just confuses those who want equality.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with finding one candidate physically attractive vs. a vs. another. There is everything wrong when you make all your decisions, let all your feelings good and bad be directed by those feelings. It's animal nature triumphing over human nature.

At times during the election, Dowd's writings were what one would expect from a woman if women experienced a heat cycle like many other mammals. Her excitement, her joy seemed tied strictly to the candidate she found most sexually appealing.

From that perspective her commentary flowed almost exclusively. Dowd is the epitome of the modern woman who proclaims her success is proof of female equality.

That is about as sensible as declaring that now that there are billionaires in the PRChina, poverty has also been eliminated.

Her best defense against fellow women is her gender. If a man were to let loose with similar language over the years he'd have long ago been fired by the NY Times.

Understanding just how base a sexual traitor she is requires looking at her in context, and understand what would be a far more expected role of a woman in her position.

And please spare me the idiotic reply that "going against expectations" is proof of liberation and independence.

Context matters, and if that liberation and success is a product of fighting to deprive others like you of the same freedom, than it proves nothing other than the person is a basely selfish individual, and definitely NOT an example to follow if society wants to regain healthy and keep progressing.

For as a society we will only achieve a forward looking, healthy society when women are truly equal and free of undue criticism tied strictly to their female being.

That society will remain far far away as long as women like Dowd all to willingly are the agents of misogyny. Their attacks are many times more damaging than ones made by men.

Just as important is the need for "other women" to NO LONGER tolerate these sorts of traitors simply, because they are successful, and thus deserve the support of women.

That long-standing feminist belief written at the dawn of the women's right fight has been the achilles heal that has allowed the Dowds, Schaffleys Palins to thrive.

It's is no more logical and rationale than the widespread behavior among the poor and middle class Americans to defer to the ultra-rich, because their wealth/success is proof of infallibility are always right and thus should be listened to

Social groups benefit from their individual members successes ONLY WHEN that achievement is not mostly based on keeping everyone else in said group down.

In that regard, Dowd and women like her, owe their success to being female misogynists, and in that there is absolutely NO benefit to women at large. The only benefactor is the selfish Dowd herself.

Dowd's philosophy re: women's equality can be stately thusly: "I got mine so women are now equal."

The West as always gets Russia's motivations wrong.

Being students of history, especially recent history, Putin/Medvedev recognize that Russia's social system is too fresh out of the USSR to successfully implement a Western style democracy and succeed. Such systems take decades, even centuries to develop into what we see today in self-described Western Democracies.

The UK's process started with the Magna Carta.

The United States worked the kinks out of her system only in the 1960s (with the civil rights laws) almost 200yrs. after the nation was founded.

Russia is fortunate to have leaders who realized just how deadly foisting "democracy" upon a population that never experienced it before, let alone a full-blown capitalist system upon an entire population that had only known Soviet style economics and been taught Capitalism was the root of all evil.

Their own sad 90s experience quickly disabused even the most progressive Russians of any notion that Western Democracies actually had any desire to help her once she shed communism.

Instead her pleas for help while down were met by a pack of revenge seeking cannibals who sought to tear the nation apart even beyond the break up of the USSR.

A quick look at nations around the world reveals what happens to countries that have not established a strong national framework to support the rigors of Democracy.

They are the failing states, poverty ridden 3rd. world disasters whose future hopes and dreams were destroyed by the strong men who took advantage of those nascent nations naivety and uneducated masses to take dictatorial absolute control.

Africans in particular have suffered this fate.

The Colonial powers left their colonies in the hands of nascent Democratic governments.

Run by people and to be elected by people with NO experience and NO understanding of the basic supporting principals, they were easy prey for the predators among nations.

And those predators aren't just people, but other nations and corporations all to happy for such nations to remain mired in poverty and unable to demand their fair share of their own wealth when shipped off overseas.

Team Putin stepped in just as Russia was about to be pushed off that Cliff by the West.

So it's no wonder that the current government finds everything and anything the Western nations say as suspect, and believe their only goal is to destroy Russia and gain control of her resources.

They believe that, because that almost happened. The original oligarchs were the West's inside men and went far in their attempt to achieve this goal.

Disillusioned by the promise of Western Democracy, Russia looks to a much better model, PRChina.

There democracy NEVER took hold, even as the Chinese economy took off like a rocket.
And it took off precisely because they shunned the same advice Russia took to heart when the USSR failed.

The PRChina's one party system is far from perfect, but what it has achieved vs. a vs. Russia's failed attempt to democratize, vs. what the end results of Democracy were in so many states too new to be able to withstand the stresses is awe inspiring, especially in Russia's eyes.

In the Russian mind I bet, they feel strongly that if they had followed the Chinese path, they'd be strong and prosperous, not a nation dependent on supplying raw materials to more developed nations, and at the cold mercy of the boom and bust cycle of the Western economic system.

Putin and Medvedev's goal is obvious and is NO threat to the West should the West ever appraise those goals fairly.

Their goal is to rewind the clock so to speak, to get as close to the beginning of the process that led to the current state of affairs of Russia, and once they can rewind no further, to implement wholesale the PRChinese system of government and economic management.

Naturally reigning in and often eliminating parties that place their own agenda over the well-being of Russia is essential.

If those parties were truly in the style of the Tories, Labor, Democrats Etc. then Western critics would have a point, but they ARE not.

Many of these so called parties started out as tools of the oligarchs to manipulate the then very new and still to weak Russian Central Government to extract more wealth for themselves and transport as much as they could to the West free of charge save for the cost of the transfers.

Some were thinly veiled nationalist parties whose sole agenda was to tear a chunk of territory off from Russia to form their own state, taking Russians living there with them.

Those are typical of the reasons for Russia's actions today, and the driving forces behind current relations with the West.

Clearly not among those forces is any desire to "defeat" the West, for the effort to "defeat" the West would necessarily destroy Russia.

And being Patriots of the first order Putin/Medvedev do not seek their nation's destruction pursuing unachievable goals.

Perhaps one day Western Leaders (maybe Obama) will have an epiphany in regards to what drives Russia, and make an honest effort to build respectful and proper relations with Russia.

Essential to doing so is understanding that for every reason western governments can think of to justify their enduring "cold war way of thinking vs a vs Russia" Russia has 2 reasons to justify not trusting the West and its advice on progress and modernization.

Until that day comes, Russia will do what has to in order to build a future for Russia without making any effort to explain their motivations.

For they know trying to explain that to the still "mired in the cold-war way of thinking" West is a waste of time.

When oil prices rise despite supply always exceeding demand - it means the market is being manipulated by speculators

The price of commodities used to be determined by the wholesale users of said commodities whether it be corn, oil Etc.

Oil refiners would bid for the supply, but not go beyond a certain point because above a certain price demand would collapse

Then overnight a change in the "customer" for oil as the commodity occurred.

Suddenly people/investors who had no intention, no ability, no use for the petroleum were joining in the bidding for reasons disconnected from supply/demand for petroleum.

In times prior they were in the market but more sideline players, not the drivers dictators of the market.

In taking over that role, the drove the "actual users of petroleum" to the sidelines - and the price of oil took off.

Without a way to profit off the oil they buy by "making something to sell with it" they instead focus on making a profit off the "trading" of the commodity, REGARDLESS OF THE DEMAND.

To fit their agenda, the price of oil was hitched to their modus operendi of gambling on possible future situations- that's as specific as one can get.

So now we have today. Ultra-powerful, connected wealthy investors buy and sell oil futures based how much they can profit from trading it.

The actual ultimate users pay for their profits with much higher prices than demand dictates the price of oil should be.

Needless to say such a system is ripe for abuse, and it's being abused.

The original commodities system was set up to accommodate actual users of the commodity and there are NO STRUCTURES IN PLACE TO CONTROL THE ACTIONS OF THE SPECULATORS who will NEVER USE THE OIL. They exploit this weakness in the system to maximize profits at everyone's expense.

The purpose, to further enrich those doing the bidding.

I do wonder how long it will be before leaders realize there is no "oil shortage" and won't be for at least a decade, and that justification is a red herring.

The other party culpable for this sham are environmentalists.

They have allowed their ideology to blind them to the utter stupidity of colluding with these guys because anything that forces humanity to wean itself off of oil is ultimately good in the long run right?

Umm, no it isn't, not by a long shot, not when doing so means enriching the very powers that caused such environmental devastation over the last century.

Unable to see past their noses, they are enabling the same group guilty of such wanton environmental destruction enough power to continue their destruction long after oil is gone.

They willingly collude by screaming "peak oil" when supplies are steady and easily increase.

In doing so they provide cover and a distraction to those who suspect there is a nefarious reason behind these dramatic, unnatural price fluctuations besides "peak oil."

If Americans don't catch on quick, it will be a matter of years before our economy PERMANENTLY collapses and slip rapidly into a 3rd world state of disintegration ala the USSR late 1980s.

The are many reasons, but the biggest one is there is no one big enough, and no one willing to save us, definitely not China.

Obama did do a lot to win the award.

The notion that restoring the world's faith in America as a great nation, lead by just, fair leaders is unworthy of the Nobel is ludicrous, small minded and clearly unpatriotic.

After 8yrs. of the Bush/Cheney regime, the world was ready to give up hope that the shining light of freedom had died out in the USA, and had been replaced by a nation that condoned torture; turned its back on scientific learning; invaded countries without cause; pursued a foreign policy based only on talking to friends (which we had fewer and fewer of each passing year) and NOT talking to enemies (the people you make peace with) a nation that was as eager as ever to use up the last of our resources while polluting as much as we ever did, while blaming it on mother nature.

Republicans under the Bush/Cheney regime replaced proper sensitivity to world opinion with outright contempt, and are/were oblivious to just how much the rest of the world hated our foreign policy rooted in preventative war based on a if you're not with us, your against us simplistic reasoning. It also didn't help that socially Southern leaders in Washington pursued regressive, anti-science, anti-environment, pro-wealthy national policies aided and abetted by Bush. To the rest of the world we had turned into a nation led by Luddites thanks to the state of 9/11 induced fear that Republicans did their best to keep hot by constantly declaring we are about to be attacked again.

If those world feelings had gone on much longer, they would have turned into a deep seated hatred of the USA and Americans not just the policies Bush/Cheney pursued.

The world saw Bush/Cheney foreign policy as shallow, callow and foolish, and were counting the minutes until they left office.

Just understanding that should make it patently obvious why the Nobel committee thought just days after swearing in Obama made moves to overhaul the policies the rest of the world found absolutely ludicrous and obstacles to progress. Hell, his merely being elected came close to inducing a world-orgasm, not because of his celebrity, but because he was clearly going to do things in accordance with the world norms which are based on rules mostly written by the USA over the years after WWII.

After 8 years of a Republican president, and almost 16 years of Southern domination of congress it will take a few years to make the lot of changes Obama wants done.

The world is eager to see him succeed, but knows that achieving success and returning the USA to a nation whose behavior fits and defines the international norms and sense of decency will take years.

The award was also an effort by the World Community to shock the still large # of oblivious Americans with a dose of reality. Any notion that the World community secretly supported the Bush/Cheney America was put to rest with this award.

Indeed the Nobel was awarded in recognition of his merely deciding to STOP wholesale the Bush/Cheney international practices that turned us from the most envied and admired nation in the world into the nation the world felt was the greatest threat to peace, even more so than PRChina and NKorea.

How far we had fallen in the eyes of the world under the Bush/Cheney regime made Obama's desire to restore the USA, still the greatest power on the planet to a nation of hope, rules and honesty worthy of a Nobel in the committees eyes. His quick follow ups to taking office and reversing various Bush rules was the solid proof they needed to again hope for a better world with the USA a great partner rather than an eternal obstacle as we were under Bush/Cheney.

A Nobel for Hope is a wonderful thing. For it rewards the ability that makes us humans able to endure and overcome even the worst pain, suffering and deprivation, and in helping to restore hope to the USA and the World is a glorious achievement. The fact that he achieved it so easily is irrelevant.

Was Madoff a tool of the Extreme Right Wing ROGUE Israeli agents - Their means to extract money from Unsupportive American Jews for settlements?

Somewhere someone or some group with many deep connections and lots of favors to call in is protecting this guy, and is having such success,

It would make sense. That Madoff a vile parasite on Jews would be protected by amoral Rogue Mossad agents who felt milking the "Left wing, peacenick American Jewish community" for a few more billions to support the Right Wing Extremists in Israelis justified "by any means necessary."


He's defrauded thousands of people for billions. He deserves no consideration, no extra comforts.

If you want him to cooperate, put him in a 3 x 6 jail cell with a couple of uptown homeboys to keep him company on these long cold NYC winter jail nights.

What I'd like to know is when is our very lapdog like media is going to take notice of this clear aberration in the carriage of justice.

This sort of coddling the criminal goes far far beyond anything I can recall for any sort of crime committed.

It's obscene.

It's a slap in the face of every fair minded American who thinks we have justice in this nation.

The last place this vile insult to the Jewish People should be is safe and snug as a bug in a rug in his 7million hi rise unit