Make your own Greek Yogurt

I like to get plain yogurt and then throw in fruit and nuts.

If you get a yogurt with living cultures you'll find that it separates between uses. It's still growing. That clear-ish liquid is the whey. You can pour that off or drink it or give it to your kitties.

Now you're making your own "Greek" yogurt.

Myrmeconema, Cephalotes, the Amazon, and ants gone wild.

Myrmeconema is a nematode that parasitizes the ant Cephalotes in the Amazon jungle.  The nematode depends on birds to spread it around.  When an ant eats something that has nematode eggs on it, the ant's abdomen turns bright red and swells up and the poor ant has an irresistible compulsion to climb to a high branch and stick it's butt in the air.  A bird mistakes it for a berry and eats it, and then flies off and poops it out and the whole cycle starts again.

Angel-season in America

Another day in the USA, another school shooting.

This map only goes up to 2006, so it doesn't have the massacre of 20 babies in Newtown last year, and several others.

It's just pathetic that the gun nuts are such babies, and can't accept even minimal attempts to keep assault weapons out of the hands of psychopaths.

Did you know that, after 9/11, Congress tried to keep people on terrorist watch lists from being able to buy guns, and the NRA blocked even that.  So they really are on the side of the people who brought down the twin towers.  They are whores for the gun industry, and the dues-paying members are the foot-soldiers for this ongoing tragic insanity.

The 2nd Amendment talks about gun ownership as part of a "well-regulated militia", so you pistol-packing paranoids have already gone FAR beyond the original intent of the founders.

If I were you I would stop being hysterical and actually PUSH for universal background checks, limits on magazine-size, an assault-weapons ban and a database to keep unstable people from buying guns.

That's a warning, because if you keep being crybabies about having to follow a few rules, for the good of society; there will come a time when you will HAVE to belong to a "well-regulated militia", and the only gun you'll be able to own will be a single-shot muzzle loader, as was the Founders' intent.

Rob Ford's true identity revealed!

I've got it: that out-of-control Toronto mayor is really Cartman!

Minolo's, "Sex and the City", the denial of Tarsus, rolling back the clock on evolution by wearing high heels!

Really, women, high heels?

Who are they for? Obviously guys think they make you look sexier; like thongs and all that Victoria's Secret crap. Really? It's just packaging; but guys are so superficial they fall for things like that, like make-up. Personally, a woman's body is the most beautiful thing there is, even old, overweight, stretched and marked by babies, bearing saggy boobs.

High heels roll back the clock on evolution 30-50 million years, to when our Lemur-like ancestors still climbed around in the trees. Since we started walking upright we put an additional joint on the ground: the Tarsus. It became a heel.

What's really insane and an example of Stockholm Syndrome is women going ga-ga over expensive heels: "Oh my god, Minolo's!"?! And maxing out their credit cards to pay for that. Really?! That just adds insult to injury. Ladies, just because they do it on "Sex and the City" doesn't mean it's OK!!!!!

But men are so stupid they want women to look like some exotic creature, rather than a human being, so they like a woman up on her toes, like a feline. If you ask me, heels are not different than the Asian practice of binding a girl's feet. And heels can actually cripple a woman, by deforming the tendons in her feet, so that she can NEVER go barefoot!

Venus and Jupiter in opposition will help you find Mr. Wrong

You can see Venus in the West soon after Sunset, being chased by the waxing crescent Moon. She's in Capricorn.

Around 9PM you can see Jupiter in the East, rising above the horizon, in Cancer.

These two bodies in opposition mean it's NOT a good time to fall in love; on the other hand, it's a GREAT time to hook up with MR. WRONG!

The weighing of the soul, the Tekh, the Ba, and the Ka

The lower image shows the "Weighing of the soul" which I actually experienced in 1985 after a bad bike wreck left me dead and receiving CPR for 13 minutes.

Anubis (the black-headed guy) reached into my chest and pulled out my heart (yes, it HURT), and placed it on the scale opposite the feather of MAAT.  What he's touching with his right hand is something called the "TEKH".  There is an Egyptian saying: "Oh my BA, oh my heart of my Mother, oh my Tekh.".  The Tekh is like a pearl, that builds up in our amygdala, when we are kind and show compassion.  The Ba is the bird on the left, landing on the chest of the deceased.  The Ba is the human component of our soul: us, all that will be remembered of our existence in this lifetime.  The Ba is our conscience, and if we do not stay in constant contact with it while conscious it comes screaming back painfully as soon as we pass into the light.  I fell down on my knees, weeping, aware of what a terrible person I was.

You'll notice that the Tekh is placed on the same side as the feather of MAAT, so, if we have a heavy heart because we are all sinners, that can be balanced by the fact that we were a good and kind person during our lives.  You can forget about death-bed conversions; it takes many years of being loving and kind to build up a sizeable Tekh.

Anubis is much scarier that he looks here: he's all obsidian triangles, shifting, and looking into his visage is like staring into the abyss.  These images are stick figures compared to what really faces us at the weighing.  Interestingly: the Egyptian word for hieroglyph is "medu-neter" which can be translated as "stick figure".

We have a second component to our soul: the KA, which is universal spirit, and which we can build by living a good and virtuous life (thus contributing to the universal pool of goodness which all major religions try to increase, and which is the source of inspiration).  We increase our KA by following our BA and working on our Tekh.

I went through this weighing and was sent back, minus the vision in one eye, the price I paid for having a heavy heart.

Deforestation in Haiti and solar ovens

The top photo shows the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic (Haiti to the left).  The entire country has been stripped of vegetation to provide cooking fuel.

On the left you can see a woman in Africa using a solar oven.  There are many designs for these, and I can imagine one made of hinged metal that is collapsible for nomads.

I have been trying for years to get the Red Cross, Oxfam, etc. to start distributing solar ovens in Haiti, and anywhere else where there is plenty of sunshine and shrinking forests.  Funny thing is: NGOs seem to like "projects" that don't solve a problem; they would rather treat a disease than cure it.  It's called "job security".

Phillipino typhoons and Pope Francis

The Philippines is the 12th most populous country in the world, most of it is just 5-15 feet above sea level. 80% of the population is Catholic.

I know some of you really like this Pope, but if he wanted to do something to prevent human suffering he would go there and tell the people, "For Chrissakes use birth control!"