“The people of Cairo are now waiting to learn the toll from the battle of Tahrir Square on Wednesday. The clashes, which broke out barely an hour after the government allowed Internet connections to resume, have added a new twist to the drama that has gripped the Arab world's largest country: Has the army been on the side of the government after all?

Since military tanks moved in across Egypt on Jan. 28, the army has largely held the support of the anti-government demonstrators and the city's residents. "The whole military is supporting the revolution," said Taher Mohamed, a lawyer, as he headed into Tuesday's so-called march of millions. The sentiment was widespread: the army is neutral; it represents the people; it has refused to fire on demonstrators. Protesters hoping to see President Hosni Mubarak fall paused to shake hands with soldiers or cheer them from the tops of tanks. (See TIME's exclusive pictures of the turmoil in Egypt.)

But on Wednesday, busloads of Mubarak supporters armed with sticks and machetes as well as a small army of men on horseback were able to get through Cairo's many military and civilian checkpoints, advancing into Tahrir Square seemingly without hindrance from the military. All of this occurred on a day when pedestrians and drivers had to weave their way through practically impenetrable army roadblocks all around downtown Cairo…”

-- That's what I've been afraid of since their apparent declaration of neutrality. There's too many unknowns. Hopefully this revolution does not turn in to a civil war.

READ HERE

-- Open Source Ecology — a network of farmers, engineers, and supporters who believe that “everyone in the world should have access to the technologies they need to escape poverty” — are hard at work on piecing together The Global Village Construction Set: “A set of the 40 different machines that it takes to create a small civilization with modern-day comforts.”

So far only one machine — a Compressed-Earth Brick Press — has been made available for purchase, but other machines will be following shortly.

Learn about the GVCS and how you can participate at OpenEcology.org. via The Daily What.

SEE HERE

-- Excellent and very real short film. Watch it.

“Swimming is supposed to give you a healthy glow, but these swimmers weren't quite sure what was going on when they took a late-night dip and turned a fluorescent shade of blue.

'It was like we were playing with radioactive paint,' said photographer Phil Hart who snapped the bizarre sight as his friends emerged from a lake in the dark of night.

The light is created by a chemical reaction called bioluminescence, which happens when a naturally-occuring micro-organism in the water is disturbed.

Phil, 34, put his camera on a very slow shutter speed and threw sand and stones into the water to cause the reaction and capture as much of the blue haze as possible.

These images are particularly stunning because the concentration of the micro-organism 'Noctiluca Scintillans' was abnormally high when he took the photos at Gippsland Lakes in Victoria, Australia.

Phil said: 'To be there watching this bioluminescence is spellbinding and to see it like this is very rare.

'I am a program director with an organisation that has been running canoeing camps on the Gippsland Lakes for 50 years. Nobody can remember the bioluminescence ever being as bright as this…”

READ HERE

-- HOLY!!!

READ HERE

-- Finally got around to watching this... lol

"It is the largest and most complex star forming region in the entire galactic neighborhood. Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy orbiting our Milky Way galaxy, the region's spidery appearance is responsible for its popular name, the Tarantula nebula. This tarantula, however, is about 1,000 light-years across. Were it placed at the distance of Milky Way's Orion Nebula, only 1,500 light-years distant and the nearest stellar nursery to Earth, it would appear to cover about 30 degrees (60 full moons) on the sky. Intriguing details of the nebula are visible in the above image shown in scientific colors. The spindly arms of the Tarantula nebula surround NGC 2070, a star cluster that contains some of the brightest, most massive stars known, visible in blue on the right. Since massive stars live fast and die young, it is not so surprising that the cosmic Tarantula also lies near the site of the closest recent supernova."

SEE HERE

-- Although they need a couple of people on the roof at all times, just to keep everything balanced.

SEE HERE

“The 100 dogs were shot dead over two days after an expected post-Olympics boon in dogsledding business at an adventure company didn't pan out. Most died instantly, but others suffered — like the one that ran away with its "face blown off and an eye hanging out."

The gruesome event was described in documents awarding compensation to a worker, who claimed post-traumatic stress disorder for having to shoot the dogs after bookings dropped sharply for a tour operator following the 2010 Winter Olympics.

"He had to chase her down and finish her off," Marcie Moriarty, general manager of cruelty investigations for the B.C. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said of the wounded down that was run down and slain.

Moriarty said the slaughter left her sickened and said it is the worst investigation she's ever done. Both the British Columbia SPCA and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are investigating the slaughter.

Moriarty said all the other dogs would have seen the incident in which the one dog did not die instantly from the single gunshot to the head and ran away from the worker…”

READ HERE

-- You will love it. Watch now.

“TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM -- You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

FRENCH CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon(tm) and market them world-wide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

A BRITISH CORPORATION -- You have two cows. Both are mad.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION -- You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION -- You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.

A HINDU CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You worship them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.

AN ARKANSAS CORPORATION -- You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute.

ENRON CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull.

ARTHUR ANDERSON, LLC -- You have 2 cows. You shred all documents that Enron has any cows, take 2 cows from Enron for payment for consulting the cows, and attest that Enron has 9 cows.”

READ HERE