Free Republic

We heard it through the grapevine - Queens has a purple pigeon. The royal-hued bird wasn't born that way, though. Someone with a sick sense of humor - or a problem with pigeons - painted him purple. "Itwas terrible," said Joe Mora, an animal lover who rescued the birdThursday from a Long Island City playground, where onlookers were gawking at the oddly-colored columbine. "It looks like this was done intentionally...it could have been blinded," Mora said. He tried coaxing the lethargic bird to eat while asking anyone and everyone for advice on how to clean paint from its feathers and...

1500-year-old Mayan paint job peeled back Jill Rowbotham | January 23, 2008 MORE secrets of the Mayan civilisation are being revealed via groundbreaking research into paint pigments used on a temple at one of the culture's most significant sites: Copan, in Honduras. Brisbane physical and chemical sciences PhD student Rosemary Goodall used an infrared analysis technique, FTIR-ATR spectral imaging, never before applied in archeology. It revealed a map of the painted surfaces of stucco masks that adorn the corners of the Rosalila temple, built in about AD550. Mrs Goodall found that the Mayans mixed finely ground muscovite mica in their...

DANBURY, Conn., Aug. 30, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- FuelCell Energy, Inc. (NasdaqGM:FCEL - News), a leading manufacturer of ultra-clean power plants using a variety of fuels for commercial, industrial and utility customers, today announced that Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F - News) will purchase a DFC300MA(tm) fuel cell for its Oakville, Ontario, facility to reduce paint solvent emanating from automotive painting operations by turning fumes from those compounds into 300 kilowatts (kW) of green electricity. The Direct FuelCell(r) (DFC(r)) unit can transform into fuel the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) that emanate from enamel base paints and clear coat finishes used in...

A global-warming activist has withdrawn a proposal to paint blue lines across a swathe of the city depicting the level the ocean could rise to if Greenland's ice sheets keep melting. The project, known as "lightblueline," had attracted criticism from some residents who feared their properties would lose value if they were located on the wrong side of the predicted flood zone. "If you're below the line, there's a stigma," said Jerry Beaver, a real estate developer who owns property that would be deluged if sea levels rise 23 feet - a scenario predicted by some scientists if Greenland's ice...

Share with all,my favorite song and presentation,Starry, Starry Night. Dedicated to Vincent Van Goph's memory http://www.flashdemo.net/gallery/show.aspx?id=43

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIJtKxdRQzY

WASHINGTON, June 22, 2007 – A North Carolina group has taken a creative approach to supporting the military by promoting patriotism through the arts. “We promote love of country, respect for the American flag and projects that support the patriotic art education of children,” said Eileen Schwartz, Flags Across the Nation’s founder. Some of the projects include three annual art contests: the Flags of Freedom Patriotic Art Contest, the I Love America Day Photo Contest and the Patriot Day Photo Contest. The art submissions from the contests are used to create quilts that are displayed around the country. In...

WASHINGTON – In the wake of scandals involving tainted food and toothpaste from China comes word of a new concern from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission as well as the Food and Drug Administration – toys, makeup, glazed pottery and other products that contain significant amounts of lead. While lead poisoning among children was once mainly caused by old paint, U.S. manufacturers long ago banned the ingredient. Today, a new rash of high lead levels in the bloodstreams of American kids is being caused by foreign products – mainly from China. So serious is the resurgence of lead poisoning...

You've heard of Picasso - but what about Purr-casso? Check out these images from Burton Silver's book Why Paint Cats. And look closely - are they real or is someone pulling your whiskers?

Vandals pour paint on Elamite bas-reliefs in southern Iran Tehran Times Culture Desk TEHRAN -- Unidentified men have poured paint on the bas-reliefs of the Elamite Tarisha Temple in the Izeh region of Khuzestan Province, the Persian service of CHN reported on Sunday. In response, the Izeh Cultural Heritage Lovers Society has asked Iranian cultural officials to mobilize security guard teams for the Tarisha Temple, which is also known as Eshkaft-e Salman, and for the nearby Kul-Farah site. The security detail for Izeh’s ancient sites has no means to defend themselves or the ancient sites, society chairman Faramarz Khoshab told...

I have a JPG image of my daughter. When I send it to be printed as a 4 x 6 photo, her head is too big (I want distance from chin to top of head to be 1", for passport purposes). How can I get a smaller head on the finished 4x6 photo? Should the photo service be able to do it? I tried the following idea, but ran into problems: - inserted the photo image into PowerPoint. - put a rectangle frame around the image - grouped the image and the rectangle, copied both and pasted both into Paint....

Letter from Newfoundland: Homing in on the Red Paint People Volume 53 Number 3, May/June 2000 by Angela M.H. Schuster (Lynda D'Amico) Port au Choix, Newfoundland-- More than 5,000 years ago, this barren, sea-lashed coast was home to the Maritime Archaic Indians (MAI), who hunted and fished the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland for more than 2,000 years. The first evidence of the Maritime Archaic culture was discovered more than 30 years ago when James A. Tuck of Memorial University of Newfoundland excavated 56 elaborate burials exposed during housing construction on a small promontory at Port au Choix, on the...

An Iraqi soldier assigned to 1st Battalion, 4th Public Order Brigade, paints over graffiti in Horajeb, Nov. 15, 2005. Iraqi and America forces worked together to clean up a school and deliver supplies to the community. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Dan Balda Iraqi Security Forces Paint the Town Clean Soldiers cover up graffiti on school walls and bring supplies to students. By U.S. Army Spc. Dan Balda 4th Brigade Combat Team Public Affairs Office BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 21, 2005 — Armed with paint rollers and paint cans, Iraqi troops assigned to the 1st Battalion, 4th Public Order Brigade...

Aker river runs white A mishap involving the delivery of paint in downtown Oslo on Friday left the River Aker colored an eerie shade of white. A delivery truck lost a pallet of paint outside a shop on Friday morning after a lifting belt broke, and 440 liters (116 gallons) of white paint ran into the Oslo river. "We have been told that the river is quite white. We are now out gathering water samples now," said Hanne Tomter of Oslo's Department of Water and Sanitation. Tomter was unsure what the effects of the water soluble paint on river wildlife...

Car paint that changes colour and glows red or another bright tint at dusk or in fog is under development in laboratories. However, it could take another 10 to 15 years before the chameleon paint appears on regular-production cars, said Philipp Oechsner, chief executive of the FPL research institute on pigments and coatings. The idea is that the car becomes safer because it is more visible when the light gets low or a certain temperature sets in, explained Peter Becker, who heads the German paint industry federation VdL. "Our scientists aim to give German paint a competitive advantage worldwide," he...

HUMAN BEINGS TAKE A NATURAL DELIGHT IN FORM and pattern. Our eyes and visual cortex are designed to pick out shapes and hints of half-hidden presences, and to recognize the colors, textures, and fine details of natural objects. These are the necessary skills of a hunter-gatherer species, adapted to follow the obscure tracks of fleeing prey, to resolve the outline of a camouflaged animal in hiding, to remember and find again a nutritious berry, root, or herb. Nature rewards the exercise of such skills, which require concentration and work, with a pleasure that modern birdwatchers, naturalists, and scuba divers know...

RESEARCHERS TAP SUN FOR TRUE WIRELESS WORLDUniversity Of Toronto researchers have invented an infrared-sensitive material that's five times more efficient at turning the sun's power into electrical energy than current methods. The discovery could lead to shirts and sweaters capable of recharging cellphones and other wireless devices, said Ted Sargent, professor of electrical and computer engineering.Sargent and other U of T researchers combined specially-designed minute particles called quantum dots, three to four nanometres across, with a polymer to make a plastic that can detect energy in infrared light.Infrared light is not visible to the human eye. It is what most...

Hello, Within the next year we will be either painting our house exterior ourselves or we will pay a contractor. Does anyone have any opinions on spray on siding? It is supposed to last forever and resist mold.

A former Jefferson City resident was the artist behind a satirical painting of President Bush in the nude, which is making headlines worldwide after it and other art lampooning national political figures were yanked from a museum in Washington, D.C., last week. Kayti Didriksen, painter of the controversial "King George" painting mocking President Bush. Kayti Didriksen, 32, the creator of the Bush painting, lived in Missouri's Capital City for 14 years, attending local and area schools through the ninth grade before moving in 1987 to Maryland State. She now lives in Washington. Her father, stepmother, grandmother and uncle still live...