Old Venice and the Backdrops of “Boardwalk Empire”

It’s really fascinating to watch the recreation of Atlantic City during it’s “hey day” and I can’t help but be mesmerized by the backdrops for the exterior scenes shot there. I’ve always had a soft-spot for historical boardwalk scenes. Not really sure if it’s some weird obsession with the Monopoly boardgame or the secretive aspect of built-in speakeasies of the era.

I’m entranced because of its resemblance to the original appearance and intent of the boardwalk that stretched through the annexed communities of Ocean Park and Venice.

Jeff Stanton (the Historian Laureate of Ocean Park and Venice) lends his insight into the boardwalk’s origins as property of the firm in which Abbott Kinney was a partner:

Park Casino (actually a restaurant and tennis club) on June 23, 1891. Several months later they decided to purchase the surrounding tract of land for $175,000 from Captain Hutchinson, a British Army officer. The man had acquired the beach front property in the late 1870’s when he foreclosed on a series of loans made to the Machado family on parts of their La Ballona Rancho.

QuantumBiology

It’s only fitting, considering the name of this site. There is new data in the field of QuantumBiology, that is foreshadowing staggering discoveries in the fields of nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. We may be on the cusp of a Brave New World of technical paradigm shifts.

This dude’s name is Hartmut Neven. Remember it, cuz this guy is what Jim Morrison would look like if he’d been a nuclear physicist.

Marginalized? Nuclear Bunker Timeshares Might Be the Answer

Friends, do you command vast resources in your rural community? Are you a member of the spiritual elite, eager to bring your family safely through the Second Coming of Our Lord and Saviour?

Why waste your financial resources setting up your own bunker, when you can share the burden with your fellow national elites?

Makes me feel a little animosity to the working class that support movements like the Tea Party. You say you don’t like big government, yet you obviously want to pay for it more than you want the rich to… You know what? You’re going to wind up paying a larger portion of the rich’s tax burden. Go ahead and elect representatives who are going to shift the tax base to the bottom end of the income spectrum (and take more of your money). You want big government? You deserve it. You want insane medical policy that hurts your children? It’s yours. You long for suicidal foreign wars? Enjoy. You bought the ticket. Enjoy the ride.

You go ahead and pick up the check.

The income tax on Social Security caps at $90,000 a year. The guy who makes that much pays twice as much as the guy who makes half as much. Seem fair?

That’s the end of the excess burden to pay for SS.

After that, it levels out. No income over $90k gets taxed for Social Security.

WTF is up with that?

U.S. Says Genes Should Not Be Eligible for Patenting – NYTimes.com

Finally, some good news. This issue affects all of us, and it relates to both intellectual property law and biomedical ethics.

So, yay.

Reversing a longstanding policy, the federal government said on Friday that human and other genes should not be eligible for patents because they are part of nature.

via U.S. Says Genes Should Not Be Eligible for Patenting – NYTimes.com.