The 100+ State Parks facing closure – Is your favorite park on the list?

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The United States is home to 6,624 state parks and has an annual attendance of over 700 million. Yet state parks are being threatened by budget cuts and economic downturn. Here’s a list of all state parks set to get the axe. Does your favorite make the cut?

It is worth noting that designating a single piece of land–especially one rich with resources–was quite radical for the early 1900s. Before the United States introduced its federal- and state-level park system, the concept was far from common. Thanks to Republican Teddy Roosevelt, the U.S. now has 41,725 miles of trail, 207,063 campsites, and 7,161 cabins and lodges across the state park system.

In fact, President Roosevelt couldn’t have said it better when he said “I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the nature resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.”

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First 24/7 solar plant

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Solar energy produced from all angles.

One of the difficulties with using solar energy is its inability to produce electricity around the clock. Torresol Energy in southern Spain has solved this problem by storing thermal energy in two tanks of molten salt. This enables the plant to generate electricity long after sundown in order to satisfy the energy needs of the local populace. The molten salt — known as MSES — stores enough thermal energy during the day to create steam power during the night…

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Banks turn to bulldozing foreclosed homes

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Banks are turning to demolition teams instead of realtors to rid them of their least valuable repossessed homes.

Bulldozers are a new remedy for banks in America’s ailing housing market.

There are nearly 1.7 million homes in the U.S. in some state of foreclosure. Banks already own some of these homes and will soon have repossessed many more. Many housing economists worry that near constant stream of home sales from banks could keep housing prices down for years to come. But what if some of those homes never hit the market.

 

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Foxconn to replace hard-working people with 1 million robots

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There are 10,000 robots at the factory now and that number will increase by 300,000 next year.

Hard-working human maufacturers are about to be replaced by about 1 million robots at Foxconn. If you think about it that is a number that is a very telling comment on the current state of electronics manufacturing.

 

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40 cool iPad apps for homeschoolers

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The iPad has become a great educational tool.

A well established tool for education for both school and home classrooms is the iPad. It is an amazingly flexible device that can assist in teaching from infancy through college and beyond.  Families that homeschool their children can benefit from using the iPad no matter the age or quantity of their children. Read on to learn about 40 favorite iPad apps for homeschool education.

 

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Study says therapy can make you feel worse

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How has that therapy worked out for you?

Therapy doesn’t always work. Sometimes, it makes things worse. And a study indicates that the only person guaranteed to feel better about life after someone sits down on a psychologist’s couch is the psychologist. In a special report being published next month to coincide with the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the journal American Psychologist has suggested that in their eagerness to help survivors to cope with the terrorist attacks, some mental health professionals may have exacerbated the trauma. Experts greatly over-estimated the number of survivors who might want treatment, and used discredited methods to help those who came to see them…

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Counterfeit driver’s licenses look so real they’re dangerous

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To the naked eye — even the practiced eye of most bartenders and police officers — the counterfeits look perfect.

A phony South Carolina driver’s license was found in the hip pocket of 20-year-old Craig Eney after the fleeing motorcycle he was driving hit a curb, scraping past a utility pole hurling him to his death.

 

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Anonymous fires back at NATO with FBI hack, releases 400MB of their data

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Anonymous is scared no longer.

Despite the recent spate of arrests on their side, Anon released 400MB of NATO data courtesy of big-time cybersecurity firm ManTech last night. This is their way of making good on a promise and reiterating that they “aren’t scared anymore”.
You’ll recall that NATO officially condemned Anonymous early last month. Well, as part of their long attack on ManTech, you’ll find a bevy of stolen NATO reports from the past several years, financial charts, and pictures of personnel both on duty and at rest. Pretty big, and this is only a portion of the gig of data they say they’re sitting on…

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Facebook and Twitter creating a generation of self-obsessed people

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 Top scientist has warned that repeated exposure to social networking websites could harm users.

According to a top scientist Facebook and Twitter have created a generation obsessed with themselves, who have short attention spans and a childlike desire for constant feedback on their lives.

 

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A font for dyslexia

Watching my kids learning how to read made me truly appreciate how difficult it can be to distinguish letters of the Roman alphabet. If you think about it, a lot of the letters are truly alike – b and p are the same thing with different rotation, v and w look almost the same and so on. Dyslexics have even greater trouble because their brains constantly “mix up” these letters…

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