Hearts to Haiti

A Timeline of Climate Change

The Maldives, Ground Zero

A timeline: from early carbon theory to Copenhagen.

Beautiful Words

via GOOD, the 100 most beautiful words in the English lexicon, selected by someone who calls himself Dr. Goodword. A sampling:

Mellifluous Sweet sounding.
Moiety One of two equal parts.
Mondegreen A slip of the ear.
Murmurous Murmuring.

The rest are here.

Obama and the Lights

A Cabinet Meeting Under the Sea

Maldives ministers 12 feet underwater, holding the world's first oceanic cabinet meeting. 'We're trying to send our message of what will happen to the Maldives if climate change is not checked," said President Nasheed.

Musical Stairs

via Fark

Archie and Jughead Forever?

I devoured the Archie comics when I was a kid. But that was before the innernets. With this in mind, the brains over at Archie Inc. decided to spice things up this year and have Archie propose to Veronica. To recap, Veronica is Archie's cruel-hearted, raven-haired object of affection, while future-great-mom-and-all-around-sweetie Betty is the girl who lusts after him.

The marriage of Archie and Veronica dismayed fans. “The polls that I’ve seen ran about 80/20, Betty over Veronica,” a comic-book historian told the New York Times. And so this month, Archie finds himself back at a literal fork in the road, where he chooses an alternative destiny and marries Betty. In Archie's dream world, the man will now have two wives.

The stunt worked; sales are up. But the question is for how long. How relevant can a 70-year-old comic strip featuring white people possibly be? Not long, I'm guessing. Unless Archie Comic Publications writes a third destiny for their hero. Just consider the rest of the quote from that historian: "The polls that I’ve seen ran about 80/20, Betty over Veronica, with Jughead continually coming in a strong third."

Bloody Mary Day

A solid idea from Mayor Bloomberg.

Ogling for the Greater Good

via Buzzfeed

Drinking vs. Creativity

(Hat tip: Mr. Forbes)

Sin Cities

A team of researchers at Kansas State mapped the seven deadly sins. This one shows lust, according to registered STD cases. Red is deadly. Green is heavenly. Find the rest here at WIRED.

What I Shouldn't Want Right Now

More at GOOD

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

A find by explorers of the world's largest garbage collection, a cluster of waste twice the size of Texas that floats in the northern Pacific. More images and commentary here.

Looking for the Goddess

Dating Montage
por smithy00101

via The Trimph of Bullshit

Women and Happiness

Gallup researcher Marcus Buckingham breaks down the trends in aging and happiness for women. It's not looking good.

For the Love of Sentences

A sentence is like a tune. A memorable sentence gives its emotion a melodic shape. You want to hear it again, say it—in a way, to hum it to yourself. You desire, if only in the sound studio of your imagination, to repeat the physical experience of that sentence. That craving, emotional and intellectual but beginning in the body with a certain gesture of sound, is near the heart of poetry.

--Robert Pinsky, on sentences and George Herbert, who wrote them well

When Cocaine and Broccoli Collide

U.S. Border Patrol agents in Laredo say they've seized nearly $8 million in drugs after searching a bus and a truck laden with frozen broccoli.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Friday the bus was packed with more than $4 million in cocaine and driven by a 30-year-old from Conroe. No arrest was immediately made after the Thursday seizure, but the agency reports the investigation is ongoing.

A separate search of a truck turned up more than a ton of marijuana and nearly 50 pounds of cocaine worth more than $3 million. Authorities say the man driving the truck was turned over to immigration authorities on federal drug charges.

--via Associated Press

Photo of the Week: Forever with Marilyn

--For sale: eternity with Marilyn Monroe

Getting the Story First

In one murder after another, the "Canal Livre" crime TV show had an uncanny knack for being first on the scene, gathering graphic footage of the victim.

Too uncanny, say police, who are investigating the show's host, state legislator Wallace Souza, on suspicion of commissioning at least five of the murders to boost his ratings and prove his claim that Brazil's Amazon region is awash in violent crime. Police also have accused Souza of drug trafficking.

"The order to execute always came from the legislator and his son, who then alerted the TV crews to get to the scene before the police," state police intelligence chief Thomaz Vasconcelos charged in an interview with The Associated Press.

The killings of competing drug traffickers, he said, "appear to have been committed to get rid of his rivals and increase the audience of the TV show."

--via Associated Press

Photo of the Week: Susan Boyle All Dolled Up

Find the rest here. (Hat tip Sullivan)