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Injustice 2
Power up and build the ultimate version of your favorite DC legends in Injustice 2.
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Weekly Update #69 – The Ecosystem
Hello everybody,
Sorry about the late update, it was meant to be posted Friday but we were a bit busy… anyway, let's have an overview of Creatures Online's ecosystem today!
Here's how the player can interact with ecosystem:
- Tap on a critter to wake it up
- Critters can't be drag & dropped directly, but it is possible to move them like decoration elements after clicking on the corresponding icon on the interface allowing you to move / sell agents
- Small critters (such as insects) generally can't be interacted with
- …but some can still be drag and dropped (for example, fishes)
- …and you can still tap on some other ecosystem-related things, such as bee nests
And here's how the Norns can interact with it:
- Even though the players can't interact with every insect, Norns can. Sometimes they hit or eat some insects, which you can reward or punish.
- Flowers, mushrooms & grass patches grow naturally and are randomly placed.
- Ecosystem varies depending of the environment. For example, the Hatchery consists mostly of flowers and butterflies. Thus, placing an insectivore critter may be a bad idea as butterflies tend to stay out of reach (yes, you can see the critters eating grass / insects)
That's it! Have a nice day.
Some previous updates:
Weekly Update #68 – The game's shop
Weekly Update #67 – The Splicing Machine Video
Weekly Update #66 – The Hatchery Machine interface
Weekly Update #65 – Explanation / recap of some game features
Weekly Update #64 – Why is debugging mandatory?
Weekly Update #63: Tweaking and answering questions about the video
Weekly Update #62: Gameplay video (mobile version)

subset: commoncrawl


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The new face of Likud
Until now, Danny Danon was a marginal character from the extremist back benches. In the next Knesset, he will be at the heart of Israel's ruling party
One of the most important events in Danny Danon's life happened in 1969, two years before he was born.
That was the year Joseph Danon, a 29-year-old army reservist, was pursuing a Palestinian guerrilla cell in the Jordan Valley. When battle was joined, one of the Palestinians threw a grenade and Danon was hit by shrapnel. He emerged from a coma after several months, having suffered a serious head wound. He was rendered permanently deaf.
Many of Danny Danon's childhood memories are of serving as his father's interpreter at banks and government offices and of going on hikes across the country and then reporting back to their home in Ramat Gan, describing the routes and the landscapes to his father, once an avid hiker himself but now too infirm to come along.
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"We would re-enact the hike at home," Danon said in a recent interview. "Despite his injury, he managed to get across the message of knowing the country and loving the country."
Danon began reading books about the underground groups that fought the British in pre-state Palestine, and learned the sites of battles from David and Goliath to the Yom Kippur War. That, he says, gave him a strong connection to the geography of Israel. Interpreting for his father, he said, "gave me the confidence to speak and argue and say what I think."
In 4th grade, he remembered, he once argued with a teacher about the event that still serves as a dividing line in Israeli politics — the sinking of the Irgun weapons ship "Altalena" off the coast of Tel Aviv in 1948 on the orders of David Ben-Gurion, who feared a rightist putsch. Menachem Begin, the Irgun leader and future Likud prime minister, was on board. Ben-Gurion's commander on the scene was Yitzhak Rabin, the future Labor prime minister.
"She said Begin was to blame," Danon recalled. "I said Rabin was to blame."
Danon's mother was born in pre-state Israel — "a Palestinian from Palestine," Danon says. His father came from Egypt as part of the mass exodus of Jews from Arab lands; Joseph Danon died of complications linked to his combat injury when Danny was 22.
Anyone paying attention to the stream of hardline rhetoric and legislation emanating from the Israeli right in the last four years will have noticed Danon's name attached to much of it — attempts to disqualify certain Arab lawmakers, or to make getting an ID card contingent on a loyalty oath, or to hem in leftist groups by outlawing contributions to nonprofits from foreign governments. Last May, he declared at a rally that illegal African migrants — "infiltrators," in the lingo of the right — had set up an "enemy state" in south Tel Aviv. After the rally, some Israelis attacked Africans who happened to pass by.
Danon is not a joke. He is not crazy. And he is no longer a back-bencher
Danon has mostly been described as a fringe character from Likud's rabid back benches. Recently, the country's most popular satire show, Eretz Nehederet — "Wonderful Country" — began mocking him as a lonely and weird teenager with acne scars.
But Danon is not a joke. He is not crazy. And he is no longer a back-bencher. Years of smart maneuvering inside the Likud catapulted Danon to the ninth spot on the joint Likud-Beytenu list for the upcoming election, putting him ahead of veteran politicians like Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin and security figures like Moshe Ya'alon, the former army chief of staff. The same primary vote banished Dan Meridor, a prominent moderate, and Benny Begin, a principled hardliner of the old school and Menachem Begin's son, to unrealistic slots at the bottom of the list and ensured they would no longer be members of Knesset.
Along with Danon, the Likud vote strengthened other candidates who believe in building settlements and in eternal Israeli control over the West Bank, dismissing what that would mean for Israel's Jewish majority or its democracy, and who have acted to constrain state agencies or civil organizations which might impede their goals.
It further brought in Moshe Feiglin at number 22 on the list. Feiglin supports building the Third Temple in Jerusalem, has suggested that Arabs not be allowed to vote in national elections, and once told a reporter, "You can't teach a monkey to speak and you can't teach an Arab to be democratic." Feiglin's inclusion has accomplished the admirable feat of making Danon appear moderately right-leaning and Netanyahu a staunch liberal.
The Likud primary vote put Danon and his vision at the center of power in the party and within reach of a post in the cabinet. Netanyahu, outmaneuvered, is outnumbered in his own party. Menachem Begin is long dead, and his son is in the political wilderness. Anyone following Israeli politics after this election will have to get used to the fact that today Danny Danon is Likud.
Danon, 41, lives in Moshav Mishmeret, in central Israel. His wife is a dietitian and they have three children, the oldest 11 and the youngest 5.
For those who are used to his strident public persona, Danon's personal demeanor can come as a surprise. He is polite and well-spoken, his answers polished and his words chosen with care. He spurns the informal dress of many Israeli politicians for a suit of a conservative congressional blue. He comes across less as a rabble-rouser than as someone who has correctly gauged the fears, frustrations and dreams of Israel's right, shares them, and has done a canny job of riding them to power.
Danon began trying his hand at politics at his secular high school, participating in the school's branch of Techiya, a now-dormant rightist faction. After serving in the army as an education officer with Jewish teenagers coming from abroad for a taste of Israeli military life — a distinctly noncombat position — he became active in the Zionist youth movement Beitar and spent time doing organizational work in Miami, Florida.
In 2006 he ran an upstart campaign for the leadership of Likud's international arm, World Likud, beating out Netanyahu's candidate, Yuval Steinitz, who is now the finance minister. He entered the Knesset in 2009, and became associated with a new bloc of young MKs in the party who made a habit of attacking Netanyahu from the right, opposing the few conciliatory moves the prime minister wanted to make toward the Palestinians — such as announcing a partial housing freeze in the West Bank in 2009 to assuage American displeasure and allow talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to go ahead.
Netanyahu made the move in order to salvage Israel's deteriorating ties with the administration of US President Barack Obama, but Danon saw it as an unacceptable admission that the Jewish presence in the West Bank was illegitimate or temporary. His vocal opposition to his party leader's policy brought him substantial national attention and bolstered his position among the party's base.
"The settlements are not an obstacle to peace," Danon said. "After the disengagement from Gaza, the public freed itself of the idea that this is about the settlements, and about land for peace."
Danon believed he was both expressing a necessary truth and doing Netanyahu a tactical favor — allowing the prime minister to point to the internal political challenge mounted by Danon and others to show Israel's allies and critics abroad why the freeze was a major concession and why it could not be extended.
"It was important to Netanyahu that my voice be heard, and I know he used it, in the US and Europe, when he talked about his domestic difficulties," Danon said.
Netanyahu has said he supports the idea of a Palestinian state, though some in his own party doubt his sincerity, as do many outside it. Even if that is Netanyahu's goal, he no longer has a majority inside Danon's Likud.
Danon's platform is virtually indistinguishable from that of the ascendant Jewish Home party, a religious pro-settlement faction that supports annexing nearly two-thirds of the West Bank and leaving Palestinians in enclaves surrounded by Israeli territory. Likud has been bleeding votes to Jewish Home despite an attempt to attack the smaller party as too extreme — an attempt that is doomed to fail, given the current makeup of Likud. Jewish Home appears to many voters from the ideological right as more pure than Netanyahu's party, which has been tainted by the compromises necessary to govern.
Danon believes Palestinians in the West Bank should be given "autonomy" in their cities and towns, but that their state is actually Jordan and their blocs of territory should be linked politically with the Hashemite Kingdom to the east. The Palestinians of Gaza can look to Egypt. Israel will directly govern most of the territory, have security control of the rest, and continue to build settlements, somehow remaining a Jewish democracy while ruling over more than 2 million Palestinians who are denied equal rights. The Palestinians, and the world, will live with it.
Does he believe the plan is realistic?
"Nothing is realistic," Danon said.
That rather apt take on where the prospects of peace stand has a lot to do with Danon's own rise within the Israeli right and with why the right will win this election.
"In terms of dealing with Arab nations, many Israelis today have gone back to the warrior mentality of David Ben-Gurion," Danon wrote in a book he published last year, "Israel: The Will to Prevail." "We're sick of hollow accords and grand ceremonies done for the camera's sake."
Politicians of the right have taken to citing Ben-Gurion as their model for ignoring international opinion, quoting his oft-repeated line, 'The question is not what the goyim say, but what the Jews do'
Ben-Gurion, he wrote, "was willing to pay a price for the security of Israel in international opprobrium, and so it is with a new generation of Israeli leaders. We also understand the necessity of shaping our fate by our own hands. If we have to pay a price with the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States, so be it."
Politicians of the right, both from Likud and Jewish Home, have taken to citing Ben-Gurion as their model for ignoring international opinion, quoting his oft-repeated line, "The question is not what the goyim say, but what the Jews do." That quote is featured in a Jewish Home video, for example, explaining why annexing most of the West Bank would be a good idea.
Ben-Gurion detested Likud's ideological forebears and would almost certainly have detested their descendants. He was keenly aware of international opinion, and ensured Israel was always allied with a greater power. Some remember that he famously declared that when faced with the choice between the entire land of Israel and a Jewish state, "we chose a Jewish state." That adage does not appear popular among candidates from Likud or Jewish Home.
While Netanyahu has been circumspect in public about his presumed affinity for the Republican party, Danon has been openly critical of the current US administration, writing in his book of the "growing irrelevance" of American influence under Obama and suggesting that "confidence in the US as a stabilizing force is eroding."
"The Obama administration support for the Palestinian position and their engagement of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt call the strength of its support for Israel into question," he writes. Danon is proud of his contacts with influential figures in the US; he mentioned TV host Glenn Beck and one-time Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee.
But at the same time, he says ties with the US administration are "very good," pointing, as do other politicians of the right, to security cooperation over the last four years — the point being that Israel can continue its current policies without causing undue harm to the country's most important strategic relationship. His own plans for the permanent disenfranchisement of the Palestinians notwithstanding, Danon says he believes "Obama and Netanyahu will work together this time."
In any case, he said, peace is off the table in the near future.
"In the short term there are two options: One is what's happening now in Judea and Samaria, where the conflict is being managed," he said. "The other is what's happening in Gaza, which is chaos. I choose the one in Judea and Samaria, which is not ideal, but at least we're in control."
"Our area is so dynamic and dangerous that you can't afford to make mistakes," he said. "If I told you three years ago that Hosni Mubarak would be in a cage in Cairo, or that Assad was going to fall, you would have said I was crazy."
In January 2013, it would be hard to find many Israelis, on the left or right, who would disagree. The electorate is currently split over whether a peace agreement and a withdrawal from the West Bank would theoretically be desirable, not about whether those things are practically possible now. Almost everyone knows they are not. After years of rocket fire from Gaza, and with the old Mideast disintegrating around Israel and morphing into something that will probably be markedly more dangerous, it is not only ideological rightists who look at a city like Jerusalem, for example, with its heterogeneous and combustible population, imagine an Israeli withdrawal, and see the specter of Aleppo.
The left has failed to present voters with a clear or credible alternative. The right has: control the West Bank forever. That vision now dominates the right and is set to dominate the next Knesset.
For guidance, Danon says, he looks to Vladimir Jabotinsky, the ideologue of Revisionist Zionism, who said Jews must build an "iron wall" of military force that would ensure their safety in Israel.
"We're not there yet," Danon said. "Today there are forces in the area who still think they can get rid of us with force. When we create a real iron wall, it will be possible to think about peace agreements."
This is the fifth in a series of profiles of political players leading up to Israel's national election on January 22, 2013. Previous installments featured the renegade rabbi Haim Amsalem; retired general Elazar Stern; Ayelet Shaked, a secular candidate in the religious party Jewish Home; and Omer Barlev, a former commando and hi-tech entrepreneur.


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It's unfortunate, but money and greed often go hand in hand. As such, it's no surprise that fraud and scams happen in the investing world, despite regulatory supervision aimed to prevent them. Public companies are supposed to act in the best interests of shareholders - but it doesn't always work out that way. Here we take a look at some of the biggest financial frauds. These companies betrayed their investors and in many cases, the financial fallout wasn't pretty. Would you have seen it coming?
It's unfortunate, but money and greed often go hand in hand. As such, it's no surprise that fraud and scams happen in the investing world, despite regulatory supervision aimed to prevent them. Public companies are supposed to act in the best interests of shareholders - but it doesn't always work out that way. Here we take a look at some of the biggest financial frauds. These companies betrayed their investors and in many cases, the financial fallout wasn't pretty. Would you have seen it coming?
1985: EF Hutton
This American stock brokerage fell from one of the most respected in its field, to total ruin. In 1980, the company began writing checks for more than what it had on hand, a strategy known as check kiting. Hutton used this strategy to obtain the use of $250 million of interest-free money a day. In 1985, the company pleaded guilty to 2,000 counts of mail and wire fraud. In exchange for the guilty plea, no Hutton executives were prosecuted and the company was allowed to stay in business.
1986: ZZZZ Best Inc.
Owner Barry Minkow posited that the carpet cleaning company would become the "General Motors of carpet cleaning". He appeared to be building a multimillion dollar corporation, but he was actually churning out thousands of phony documents and sales receipts. In the end, the company turned out to be little more than a front designed to lure investors into a Ponzi scheme, which, according to Minkow's 1988 indictment, defrauded ZZZZ Best's Investors and lenders out of $50 million.
1996: Centennial Technologies Inc.
This company was hailed as a winner on Wall Street when, in 1996, its stock price rose 451% to $55.50 per share to become the best performing NYSE stock that year. But rather than raking in revenue on PC memory cards, Centennial was actually orchestrating sales of nonexistent products to executives' friends, who received fruit baskets from the company and falsely acknowledged that they had received Centennial products. According to the SEC, Centennial overstated its earnings by about $40 million over a two-year period. In the fallout, more than 20,000 investors lost almost all of their investment in this former Wall Street darling.
1997: Bre-X Minerals
This Canadian company's Indonesian gold property was reported to contain more than 200 million ounces, making it the richest gold mine ever. The stock skyrocketed, making millionaires out of ordinary people overnight, but the party ended on March 19, 1997: the gold mine proved to be fraudulent, and the stock became nearly worthless. Major pension funds in Quebec and Ontario, which had invested heavily in the stock, lost millions.
2001: Enron
This Houston-based energy trading company was, based on revenue, the seventh largest company in the U.S. But through some fairly complicated accounting practices that involved the use of shell companies, it was able to keep hundreds of millions worth of debt off its books and create incredible earnings figures. When the SEC launched and investigation in 2001, it revealed a complex scam that had brought the company the verge of collapse. When it finally fell, the stock price plummeted from more than $90 to less than $0.70; thousands of Enron employees lost savings, college funds and pensions and investors lost billions.
2002: Worldcom
This telecommunications giant came under intense scrutiny after it engaged in some serious book cooking, and began recording operating expenses as investments. In total, $3.8 billion worth of normal operating expenses were recorded as investments, grossly exaggerating profits. Tens of thousands of employees lost their jobs in the fallout and investors suffered as the stock dropped from $60 to less than $0.20.
2002: Tyco International
Tyco was considered a safe blue chip investment, manufacturing electronic components, healthcare and safety equipment until CEO, Dennis Kozlowski began siphoning money from Tyco in the form of unapproved loans and fraudulent stock sales. Along with CFO Mark Swartz and CLO Mark Belnick, Kozlowski received $170 million in low- and no-interest loans - without shareholder approval. Kozlowski and Belnick arranged to sell 7.5 million shares of unauthorized Tyco stock for a reported $450 million. As the scandal began to unravel, Tyco's share price plummeted nearly 80% in a six-week period.
2002: Adelphia
This cable company, once the fifth-largest in the U.S., fell from grace when the company's three founders and two other executives were charged with securities and other violations, including theft, conspiracy and wire fraud. The SEC also charged that the company fraudulently excluded billions of dollars of liabilities from its consolidated financial statements. The company collapsed into bankruptcy, leaving investors holding the bag.
2003: HealthSouth Corporation
By 1996, Healthsouth had become one of America's largest healthcare service providers, thanks to rapid growth and several acquisitions through the 1990s. But around this time, company CEO and founder Richard Scrushy began instructing senior officers and accountants to inflate revenues and overstate HealthSouth's net income. The scandal unfolded in March 2003, when the SEC announced that HealthSouth had exaggerated revenues by $1.4 billion; the stock fell from a high of $20 to a close of $0.45 in a single day.
2008: Bernard Madoff
Making for what could be an awkward Christmas, Bernard Madoff, the former chairman of the Nasdaq and founder of the market-making firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, was turned in by his two sons and arrested on December 11, 2008, for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme. The 70-year-old kept his hedge fund losses hidden by paying early investors with money raised from others. This fund consistently recorded a 11% gain every year for 15 years. The fund's supposed strategy, which was provided as the reason for these consistent returns, was to use proprietary option collars that are meant to minimize volatility. This scheme duped investors out of approximately US$50 billion.
- No results found.
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Washington (CNN) -- The United Arab Emirates defended its decision to suspend BlackBerry internet service on Monday, with its ambassador in Washington arguing the United States requires the same "regulatory compliance" for national security reasons.
The statement from Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba came hours after a U.S. State Department spokesman criticized the Middle Eastern nation's decision to restrict BlackBerry e-mail, instant messaging and Web browsing. Al Otaiba said the comments were "disappointing and contradict the U.S. government's own approach to telecommunications regulation."
"In fact, the UAE is asking for exactly the same regulatory compliance -- and with the same principles of judicial and regulatory oversight -- that BlackBerry grants the U.S. and other governments and nothing more," the ambassador said. "Importantly, the UAE requires the same compliance as the U.S. for the very same reasons: to protect national security and to assist in law enforcement."
The state-run Emirates News Agency reported Sunday that the UAE would suspend BlackBerry's data service as of October 11. The announcement said certain services "allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns for the UAE."
U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley called the move "a dangerous precedent." He told reporters Monday that the United States supports the free flow of information, "And we will be clarifying with the UAE their reasons for making this announcement."
"It's about what we think is an important element of democracy, human rights, and freedom of information and the flow of information in the 21st century," Crowley said. He said the United States understood the Emirates' concerns "about how information can be used by those who wish to attack the UAE or others," but added, "We think this is not necessarily the best way to accomplish it."
Sunday, Telecom expert Abdel Rahman al Mazi told CNN that BlackBerry is considered to have the most secure operating system -- "but on that same wavelength, you have to think that some of the activities that go on within the BlackBerry user community could need to be monitored by some government agencies for security reasons."
Research In Motion, the Canadian company that produces the BlackBerry, has yet to provide any official response to CNN about the issue. But the UAE has said it has tried to reach a solution to the issue with the company.
"It is regrettable that after several years of discussions, BlackBerry is still not compliant with UAE regulatory requirements even as it complies with similar policies in other countries," Al Otaiba said.


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Knicks 102, Hawks 90
: Uncategorized : Written by Jim Cavan : 02-17-2011
[Ed's note: My apologies to Jim, for not seeing this sooner.] The game right before the All-Star break can be a wildcard. Some teams use it as momentum for the home stretch, while others look at is as no more than a glorified practice, essentially taking an extra night off. While the Hawks were more than obliged to play the latter role, the Knicks looked eager to exorcise the bewildering demons of the teams' first two match ups – both disappointing, low-energy losses – and capitalized on the Hawks' obvious disinterestedness en route to a 102-90 win which saw New …continue reading


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Before I go deeper into the design of Kelly and Dave's kitchen, I want to let you in on my thinking at the start and along the way.
When Kelly (you know Kelly as my daughter) and my son-in-law, Dave, asked me to design their kitchen, the concept of "control" quickly entered my mind. I was thrilled that they came to me because it showed a respect for my work and a confidence or hopefulness of some sort on their part that we could make it work, presumably without...drama.
So, the control issue came up for me because, well, yes, I know kitchen design and they don't, yet it's their home, so how would THAT manifest itself in my approach with them? I'd be visiting this home continually after the project is over, unlike my other projects. Hmmm...
- Would I come on too strong?
- Would I have to pick battles?
- Could my daughter be nudged in certain directions without creating a power struggle?
- Would I have the need to project myself as the authority to quash a potential power struggle in order to get my way?
- Would those fears even be an issue and is it harmful for me to even question that?
- How would the give and take that has to happen in a positive design process work, given that we are mother and daughter?
- Lastly, would I do a good job? Wow, that was a huge concern at the start - later, it went away
As you can see I was quickly on the lookout for potential, very deep rooted, situations to present themselves! Plus, the kitchen is 190 square feet, is eat-in, must be suitable for entertaining, and there is no other dining area in their home, so the design had to be GOOD. There was no room for error; every inch counted! Good collaboration was vital!
Being a graduate (are you ever a graduate?) of long term therapy years ago, I decided to find tools of communication that would make the process a positive one. One of the biggest tools we both ended up using from the start of this kitchen renovation project was the combination of sharing blunt/wide open opinions, stated either calmly or enthusiastically as the situation warranted, often laced with humor ABOUT the fact that we were "just putting it out there", perhaps with a mischevious smile. Or, we would just talk things to death from every possible angle.
We also provided time for each of us to digest an opinion or concept. We dug deep right away and stayed there throughout, always, or mostly, being aware of what was really behind our opinions. Looking back, humor was the theme - there was a LOT of laughter, often making fun of potential control issues on either side! It was a way to be aware of our intentions. That particular type of humor sort of brings with it a piece of vulnerability on both sides which then brought us closer everytime we engaged in it.
I like humor, I really do. Many times, if I was pitching an idea to Kelly, doing a full-on pitch, I'd also throw in..."and the baby is ready for a sippy cup by the way", just to be silly, bring levity, and add that fun factor. Kelly did the same, firmly and delightedly putting me in my place as she saw fit, or just felt like doing for her own idea of a good time! We didn't feel the need to always tread lightly with one another. Sometimes we pushed it to the max!
So, like all of my other clients, I could only be an authority up to a point. My professional side quickly brought in that understanding - that it is ultimately their home and my job was to enlighten, provide choices, education, and they would take what they wanted from it. I knew in essence, there was no difference with this approach, whether it be a typical client or my daughter. That should be my gift to her, right?
In a desire to be transparent, I'm trying to think of where there was drama, and either I'm blocking it out or it was so minimal that I don't remember it. Maybe Kelly will. What I remember is one word: fun.
Renovating a kitchen, I think, definitely can be one of the most rewarding, fun, and enjoyable things to do. All of the senses reside in the kitchen: touch, sight, taste, smell, hearing, something I have noted for years. The kitchen is the soul of the house. Kelly knows that, she felt it, and from my perspective, she also wanted this experience to be meaningful, us working together, as well as fun. It was, and we did have fun. We congratulated ourselves when it was over and we declared it a good experience!
Whether it's a mother as the designer and daughter as client, (or any family combination) or husband/wife working with a chosen designer, I have some advice, having come from years of experience as well as from the emotional place of working with a family member. This advice is for working with friends as well.
Think positive - just do it
Look for fun - find something funny as frequently as possible (like, a lot)
Put decisions into perspective - think "first world problems"
Trust and respect your design professional and make sure that is returned before you hire him/her - nothing good will happen otherwise. Trust Susan on that.
Take time to make a decision when you need to - don't be or feel pressured
Communicate as clearly and openly with all parties involved in the process as you can
Be organized - putting your thoughts, choices, etc. into a project management system will take the pressure off
Did I say have fun???


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Recent images of Mars prove that there is life on Mars.
There are two developments in the last week that convince astronomers and NASA that there is life on Mars. The first is the picture taken above, which clearly shows a Bigfoot like creature walking on Mars.
The picture, which was taken in 2010, has been analyzed by the top NASA scientists for the last two years and NASA reportedly released a statement on Friday that said, in part, "we are convinced that the object in the picture is a being of some sort. We have examined multiple pictures from multiple angles and put it all through the Xicon Formula. The being is alive and moving."
The second development occurred this week. Scientists say cloud formations prove that there is life on Mars.
The clouds are at least 150 miles away from the surface. Some suggest they are not clouds, but rather w debris which was disturbed after the Red Planet was hit by a meteor. But NASA reportedly confirms that they are clouds, rain-producing clouds.
'It's not completely unexpected. But they are bigger than expected," said Thomas Hillstrom, a member of the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University, to Cosmic Log.
A Thermal Emission Imaging System (Themis) on Nasa's Mars Odyssey orbiter were used to look at the area where the clouds was spotted. "They are definitely clouds," said Hillstrom. "No question."


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Who masters Meydan?
Longines, the official timekeeper at Meydan, generously sponsor Friday`s Meydan meeting which is highlighted by the UAE 1000 Guineas Trial and also features the three concluding legs of the Meydan Masters International Jockeys Challenge.
Six have been declared for the 1400m all-weather feature with Godolphin`s Gamilati and Alsindi, having her first start for last season's Champion Trainer Ali Rashid Al Raihe, look likely to dominate the minds of Pick Six players.
Trained by Godolphin's Mahmoud Al Zarooni, Gamilati was a Group Two winner last summer and has to give weight to her five rivals as a result, with retained jockey Frankie Dettori in the saddle.
However, Al Zarooni sounds hopeful and said: "She has been working well since she arrived in Dubai and is enjoying the weather. She did not run as well on her final start in England as we had hoped she would but she has had a nice break and we are looking forward to running her again. It will be her first try on [the all-weather] but we do not think that will be a problem."
Alsindi was a Group Three winner in England for Clive Brittain and she therefore gives weight to the other four runners. She will be ridden by Royston Ffrench who said: "She has settled in well and seems to handle the [the all-weather] in the mornings. Obviously Gamilati was very useful in England and a serious rival but we should run well."
Mary Fildes, representing the UK and trainer Stan Moore, looks best of the rest.
The best handicap on the card is the penultimate 2200m Longines Master Moon Phases on the all-weather surface. Tahaamah should go close for the Godolphin team prepared by Saeed bin Suroor, but Al Raihe`s Sharaayeen ran well on his local debut at Jebel Ali last week and jockey Richard Hills said: "I was very pleased with that run and expect him to run a big race."
Hills won the inaugural Meydan Masters in 2010 but there will be a new champion this year as neither he, nor last year`s winner Calvin Borel, are taking part in the four race series.
Combined, the Meydan Masters jockeys won a staggering 61 Group One races around the world during 2011 and include the winning riders of the Dubai World Cup, Caulfield Cup, W.S. Cox Plate, Melbourne Cup, King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.
There are also seven that won Classics in 2011 which included the Derby, St Leger, 2000 Guineas, 1000 Guineas, Hong Kong Derby, Japanese Derby and Irish Derby.
The 12 riders are; Mickael Barzalona, Maxime Guyon and Christophe Lemaire from France; William Buick, Ryan Moore, Colm O`Donoghue and Tom Queally from Great Britain and Ireland; Italy's Mirco Demuro and Frankie Dettori; Kenichi Ikezoe from Japan; Andrasch Starke from Germany and Australia's Craig Williams.
Points are accumulated based on the riders' finishes in the race, and the winner is determined by the highest point total secured in those races.
The first of the races was run on Thursday night and the series concludes with a 1400m Longines St Imier Collection Part Of The Meydan Masters International Jockeys Championship handicap, the only race of the four to be contested on turf. Sadly only 11 were declared, which meant one Meydan Masters jockey would not ride. After the random draw, it was William Buick who did not have a mount, and subsequently awarded five points.
The weights in that race are headed by Finjaan, trained by Doug Watson and to be ridden by Frenchman Maxime Guyon.
Watson said: "The horse is in good form and ran really well at Abu Dhabi last time. The 1400m should be ideal and we have a good jockey so we have to be hopeful."
Laa Rayb was fourth at Abu Dhabi on his most recent start for Dhruba Selvaratnam and has the assistance of Japan`s Keni Ikezoe. They should go close, while Frankie Dettori`s legion of fans will be hoping for a bold effort from bottom weight Cartel.
Dettori, will find two of their runners in opposition with Dubai World Cup winning jockey Mirco Demuro on Al Aasifh and Tom Queally, associated last year with the remarkable Frankel, partners Les Troyens. Both are trained by Saeed bin Suroor.