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Destroy the Palm Trees - Five Reasons Why Palm Trees Need To Go Away

This article is selected for 123ish 3D Gold Coin Art Collection NFT      I'm here to tell you about a vegetable menace that is the AIDS of the plant world. If you live in most parts of North America, these plants have you surrounded.  They're butt-ugly brown sticks thrusting phallically into the sky in unnatural rows, crowned by a spidery fright-wig of spikes. They look like a raspberry on a stick.        I'm talking, of course, about the omnipresent palm tree, found everywhere in your city. It doesn't matter…
Score: 12.3

How To Build An EDH Deck For Magic: The Gathering

This article is selected for 123ish 3D Gold Coin Art Collection NFT      Ready For Commander?  Commander, also called "EDH" (stands for "Elder Dragon Highlander," an outdated in-joke), is the most popular format of the collectible trading card game Magic: The Gathering, counting over-all formats.  While EDH doesn't appear much in competitive formats when the tournament is over, and the last booster box handed out, look for the players to be huddled up in the corner over a Commander game.  It has every…
Score: 6.56

Thailand VS Philippines in language, culture, money, and love

Moving to Thailand or the Philippines and how the English language, cultural influence, cost of living, and relationships could affect your choices.        It is never as easy as choosing a pros and cons list or just doing what works for others.    If one is considering the possibility of moving to Asia and becoming an official Expatriate (or expat for short), two popular choices are:   Moving to Thailand Moving to the Philippines   I use these two more specifically because I have lived in both countries.  In…
Score: 6.19

Star Trek Is For Liberals, Star Wars Is For Conservatives

    How I Came To This Crazy Conclusion...  The freelance writing business takes you on some unexpected adventures. Over the holidays I was doing research work for this one client regarding the political leanings of corporations, which included punching the names of lots of companies into the site Open Secrets.        It's a strange world there. In the first place, there's some debate as to whether corporations should be meddling in politics on the financial level at all.  But beyond that, the logic behind…
Score: 5.28

Why Are Disney Songs So Catchy - How Disney Songs Hijack Your Brain?

    We’ve all heard them, and they get stuck in all our heads. But why? Why is it that Disney can seemingly create earworms?  Though there’s no such thing as a Disney formula, today we’re going to get close to one. And best of all, this theory is not one that I’ve hacked together to try to show something new and inventive. Not at all.  I stumbled upon everything you’re about to read.  About two months ago, I was asked to do a medley of several popular Disney songs. I ran into a problem.        One of the keys of…
Score: 4.36

Nuclear War

The nuclear test sites heritage

by Dominus

What happened to the nuclear test sites after the nuclear tests stopped? The US alone carried out 1054 tests out of which 928 were executed on the mainland. Out of an initial lack of information about the dangers of nuclear contamination these sites were visited right after the detonations with devastating effects for the ones who were exposed to nuclear radiation. After this slow yet rude awakening, the sites were left alone for a long time. What is happening to them and how are they being…
Score: 1.11
Crochet

How to crochet a hat for babies, kids, and adults

Hats are fun  I love to crochet  I am always looking for new patterns or ideas of what I can make. I have crocheted blankets of many different sizes, Mostly baby blankets, but some full-size blankets. I have also crocheted a scarf and several different hats. I discovered that I really enjoy crocheting hats, once I figured out the pattern.   Hats are fun because I can make a hat in about 5-6 hours, or one to two days. Some hats take longer if I chose to add faces, and ears to give make them look like…
Score: 1.0
nutrition

How To Avoid Eating Excess Sugar

I have a health condition called PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). I won't go into all the details about it but it puts me at a very high risk for developing type 2 diabetes later on in life. So recently I decided to start eating healthier and to cut out excess sugar from my diet. And from that point on, I've noticed that food companies put sugar in everything. Obviously, if you really want to know exactly what's in your food you should probably cook it yourself from scratch, but…
Score: 1.17
Training with Positive Reinforcement

A Journey to Mindfulness in Horse Training

  As a young girl, I could not wait to run to the barn after school. I would spend hours sitting on the fence or wandering through the pasture as my horse grazed. I felt content grooming or just spending time with her. Riding or working was never the main goal; I wanted to feel connected. At that time in my life, I felt I could communicate with my horse. We did not need words, it was more like a dance - two partners moving fluidly through space, speaking a language all our own.    As I got older…
Score: 1.0
Japanese Education

Five Outstanding Features of Public Schools in Japan for Americans

What do you know about similarities and differences between American public schools and other countries' public schools?  Here are five key features of Japanese Public Schools that stand out most from American education system.  By DarklanlanTaken by Darklanlan [CC0], from Wikimedia Commons  Well Planned LunchJapanese kids at elementary and junior high schools eat one menu lunch during their school lunch time. These lunch providers differ depending on the policy and mission of each city’s…
Score: 1.11
Linux

The Top Linux Distros for Everyday Use for Everyone

    Those of you elder Ents who still remember the pioneer days of the web may remember that once upon a time your Present Author blogged about Linux. There was a Linux blog; I was well-known in the Linux community, I posted lots of tutorials, HOWTOs, some GPL'ed code, scripts, and the occasional distro or application review. That's where the "Penguin" in my name came from was Tux, the Linux penguin mascot.  Then the great mobile apocalypse happened.        Suddenly, what operating system ruled the desktop…
Score: 2.44
Social Media Activism

It Is Indeed Time To Police Social Media

    It is time we faced the music, Internet fans: We broke everything. Social Media was a mistake. None of us are close to understanding how or why, but apparently we have created a monster.    Social media seemed harmless enough when it came along.  Social media was nothing but an extension of the exact same Internet we'd had for decades. Believe it or not, there is very little difference between modern Reddit and Usenet circa 1990. There's also very little difference between modern Twitter and an AOL…
Score: 1.19

#MeToo: Did Anything Change?

2 words… 2 words and what was once known as a pound sign lit up the internet, was stoked by celebrities and ignited the world into discussing a topic that once was too taboo to even speak behind closed doors. Though this movement has proven to make major waves in the world of the celebrity - with the big name arrests of Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein - what is happening for everyone else? What about the everyday woman without the money, power, and influence behind her?The first time I was…
Score: 1.06
Parenting

Helicopter parents

by Dominus

Parents love their children. They want to protect the young ones from everything that can harm them and teach their adorable little humans everything they need to know to become responsible, self-sufficient adults. Parents teach the child the proper way to do things and then they have to give that same child space to practice on their own. That means that in some situations the child has to be left alone to find his/her own solutions to increasingly more difficult problems, based on what they…
Score: 1.72

Finally, Custody! Becoming a Dad

  Dreams realized usually create new dreams.  It is hard therefore to accept that a dream is not very far from a nightmare. Nor a nightmare far from a dream!  To say I love my daughter is an understatement. To say I understood what I was getting into is a gross understatement. Parenting is different than wanting to be a parent.  My daughter is smart, intelligent, sassy, good-looking, organized and controlling. Children of alcoholics often feel that their life is out of control and that they have no…
Score: 1.2

Parenting, Raising a child.

Parenting at best is a no-win situation in the present and a winning situation if you are lucky in the long-run.    Life teaches hard lessons and as a parent, just because you teach the hard lesson is no guarantee of the right outcome. I've seen great parents have troubled kids, and seemingly lousy parents have incredible kids. I have no answers. I could only do what I thought was right for my daughter and me and my family. I tried to teach honesty, trust, helpfulness, kindness, thoughtfulness…
Score: 1.06
Grief

Thoughts On Grief

While sitting in my favorite spot by the water, the last beams of sunlight warming my skin, I read these words (written by Lisa Gungor in her book The Most Beautiful Thing I’ve Seen) -    “But I’ve found my life is built on ordinary days of going in and coming out… This is where I’ve found grandness. This is where I’ve found what I believe about life and where I’ve found myself applauding others instead. It’s in long nights on a good porch, letting the silence sit next to you. It’s the hard things…
Score: 1.16
anthology shows

We Always Need A Black Mirror

    The Netflix original series Black Mirror has attracted a surprising number of critics, some ridiculing the very premise of the series - and having that backfire - others just dismissing it as "pretentious," while others claim the very title sailed over their heads, and finally a whole subsection out there blowing it off because it's similar to The Twilight Zone franchise.    Um, yeah, that's the whole point!      For those out of the loop: Black Mirror is a modern speculative fiction anthology series with…
Score: 1.28