The Andromeda-Milky Way Collision

I found a pretty interesting article from NASA that discusses the cosmic collision of the Andromeda and Milky Way Galaxy. The event will occur billions of years into the future and give birth to new stars. Although the event is described as a collision, a cosmic merge is a more fitting term. According to NASA, this is not the end...

When Galaxies Collide
Let's look four billion years into the future. A group of our descendents stands with their teacher and looks up at a night sky ablaze with thousands of dazzling white stars. All of these new stars are being born, their teacher tells them, because of an immense cosmic event.

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, has collided with another galaxy, called Andromeda. Although the two galaxies are passing through each other at a million miles an hour, the whole process will take many millions of years to complete. And when everything settles down, the two galaxies will have merged into one.

The students fear that this may be the end of life, as they know it. But, their teacher reassures her class that there is very little chance of stars from the Andromeda galaxy hitting the Sun or the Earth. Even though the galaxies pass clear through each other, she says, stars in a galaxy are spaced very far apart.

They are like grains of sand separated by the length of a football field. The Andromeda stars simply pass by. But galaxies are more than just stars. They contain giant clouds of gas and dust. And, when galaxies collide, these clouds smash into one another. The clouds contain the raw materials needed to make new stars. It is the collision between clouds that has triggered a starry baby boom!
Source: NASA

The End of America?

According to Russian Academic Igor Panarin
He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.
Source: The Wall Street Journal

China Blocks Access to New York Times Website

BEIJING — China has blocked access to the New York Times Web site, the newspaper said Saturday, days after the central government defended its right to censor online content it deems illegal.
Source: The Huffington Post

Also Check Out
China Defends Censoring Websites that Break Rules

Last Known Gay Holocaust Survivor Speaks Out

The Pink Triangles
“The way Nazis treated the ‘pink triangles’ is unspeakable,” Brazda told Têtu, referring to the emblem gays were forced to wear to signify their homosexuality. “They had absolutely no mercy.

The “pink triangles” not only had to suffer the ill treatments of the Nazis but also had to endure the homophobia of other prisoners. In the documentary Paragraph 175, which takes its name from the German Criminal Code provision regarding homosexuality, Pierre Seel, the only Frenchman to have publicly testified about his imprisonment for being gay, explains that "the weakest people in the camps were the homosexuals; they were at the very bottom.” Seel died in 2005.
Source: The Advocate

Life's Cycle of Judgment and Hate
The cycle of history repeating itself is crazy. And also the ignorance of people in general. For example, gay being a choice. When you're in a situation where you're killed for being gay, how do you rationalize it being a choice? Survival is a basic instinct.

The Curse of Ham

"In another area of human rights, many Christian clergymen advocated slavery. Historian Larry Hise notes in his book 'Pro-Slavery' that ministers 'wrote almost half of all defenses of slavery published in America.' He lists 275 men of the cloth who used the Bible to prove that white people were entitled to own black people as work animals." [James A. Haught, 'Holy Horrors']

In this groundbreaking book [The Curse of Ham], David Goldenberg seeks to discover how dark-skinned peoples, especially black Africans, were portrayed in the Bible and by those who interpreted the Bible--Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Unprecedented in rigor and breadth, his investigation covers a 1,500-year period, from ancient Israel (around 800 B.C.E.) to the eighth century C.E., after the birth of Islam. By tracing the development of anti-Black sentiment during this time, Goldenberg uncovers views about race, color, and slavery that took shape over the centuries--most centrally, the belief that the biblical Ham and his descendants, the black Africans, had been cursed by God with eternal slavery.
Source: Princeton University Press

Also Check Out
One Winged Angel - Sephiroth's Theme (Final Fantasy VII Advent Children)
The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam by David M. Goldenberg

A Different World

Check out this hot dance video by Loverush UK! Make sure to watch the guy at 1:55. That right there is natural born talent mixed with a lot of skill.

‘Different World’ the music video features the stunningly beautiful Shelley Harland and some of the most unique and skilled dancers in the world doing what they do best, dancing! The slick old school urban dance video features many styles of dance such as Popping, Hip-Hop, Lyrical, Gymnastics, Boogaloo, Contemporary, Street Jazz, Belly Dance, and Modern. The video also features 18 year old popping sensation Phillip “PacMan” Cheeb from this past season of Fox’s smash hit TV show “So You Think You Can Dance.” With its uplifting lyrics and driving beats ‘Different World’ inspires movement which is spectacularly captured in each dancer’s performance.
Source: MySpace

Also Check Out
Loverush Digital

Hip Hop's Gay Subculture (Hiding in Hip Hop)

American rap music is an industry ruled by machismo. It is a place where reputations are made by shady pasts, the aura of violence and ultra-masculinity. But now an explosive new book is lifting the lid on one of hip hop's most unexpected secrets: that many people in the business are gay.
Source: The Observer

No comment really. The article speaks for itself, however it should come as no surprise to anyone that the Entertainment industry is a Gay industry.

Also Check Out
Terrance Dean (author of Hiding in Hip Hop)
DMX on Crack Puts the Industry on Blast (Video) [Vulgar Language]

Energy

Keri Hilson - Energy (Wide Boys Club Remix). The best Energy remix I've heard. Check it out!

Circus

Check out Britney's new video for Circus. I'm impressed. Good job Brit!

Also Check Out
Britney Spears - Circus: Making the Video
Britney Spears - Circus: Rolling Stone Review

Voice of a Generation?

Kanye West is starting to refer to himself as the Voice of a Generation. At first look I'm sure a lot of critics would scoff at the remark and immediately write him off as just "being Kanye." But realistically, from his first album to his most recent, I believe Kanye has in some way defined and influenced the Gen Y College generation. How many casual and hardcore fanatics quote his lyrics and imitate his style? Damn near everyone. Bravo Kanye! Maybe you are history in the making.

Voice of a Generation
"The reason why I feel I had to give a little introductory speech before you heard the album is because this is not hip-hop music," he says. "Taking a sample, looping it and doing all that 'throw your hands up in the sky' thing has become such a cliche. Hip-hop is over for me. I sing, not rap, on this album. I now want to be grouped among those musicians you see in those old black-and-white photos - the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles. And I'm not going to get there by doing just another rap album full of samples.

"I've had to create a whole new musical genre to describe what I'm doing now and I'm calling it 'pop-art' - which is not to be confused with the visual art movement. I realise that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of a generation."

Popularity
He disdains what he calls the snobbery of people who think if something is popular "then it's necessarily bullshit".

"Look at all those indie guitar bands who look down on pop music. My question to them is: "Do you not want a song of yours to explode and be heard by everyone?'

"Look at Britney Spears and how people talk about her. If you don't like Britney Spears, then you're just wrong."
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald