Can one love one's penis too much? (video)

Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; LiveScience.com; TheFinalMember.com

This optical illusion is caused by our brain's top down processing rather than being mindful of what's there or what psychologists refer to as bottom up processing -- perceiving based on data rather than interpretation. Instead, our minds constantly "construct" our reality. Send complaints care of CC Liu. Then fish your mind out of the gutter and look below:

(VICE) Can a man love the penis too much? Acclaimed at festivals worldwide including HotDocs, SilverDocs, and Fantastic Fest, "The Final Member" follows the aging curator of one of the world's only penis museum as he races against his own mortality to complete his comprehensive collection. Opens in theaters and VOD 4-18-14.

Female Penis, Male Vagina: First Case of Genital Reversal in Nature

Charles Q. Choi (livescience.com); Yoshizawa et. al (Neotrogla aurora in Current Biology)

Female penis structure of cave insect (CB)

Females with penislike genitals and males with vaginalike organs are cases of a new extreme reversal of sex roles researchers have discovered in little-known cave insects.

 

These are the first examples of animals with genitalia that reverse the traditional sex roles, and the discovery could shed light on the conflict between the sexes in the animal kingdom, investigators said.

 

Scientists analyzed four species of insects from extremely dry caves in Brazil. All four species belong to the genus Neotrogla, just as dogs, wolves, coyotes, and jackals belong to genus Canis. The first Neotrogla was discovered 18 years ago; adult Neotrogla range from about 2.7 to 3.7 millimeters (0.11 to 0.15 inches) long. More

I am not a Dick (Nixon)
Stephen "the new David Letterman" Colbert on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

• PHOTOS: Genital-Reversed Cave Insects (Rated X-treme)

• 

  Get off me, dumbo!

  Animal Sex: How Elephants Do It
• Brazil targets sex tourism before the World Cup Brazil's government has closed down sex hotels, supported groups that work with at-risk children, and is encouraging reporting of abuse.
• AUDIO: How to be more masculine with MANtras
• Pot of Gold: Innovation helps cannabis industry
• So. Carolina town had a lesbian police chief
• Strip club owner in Valley seeks power 
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• VIDEO: Mystery ocean sound finally explained
• Keeping Time: Why 60 minutes?
• TIME-LAPSE: Giant iceberg (8 times the size of Manhattan) breaks off glacier. Thank you, Climate Chaos
  

Buddhism in America before Columbus (video)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; All History Buff (History Channel)

Polish Jew Christopher Columbus came to infect, rape, and enslave for Europe (AMN)

   

Long before Christians and Conquistadors

The Chinese made a map of the world

It's 455 and the Aztecs live in America as the Chinese begin to make their way to the "New World."

This was long before Chris(to) Columbus' merchant mission. In fact, no less than a dozen cultures have tales of these adventures woven into their histories, but they are noticeably absent in American history books. This documentary explores the possibility that Chinese Buddhists, Japanese, Polynesians, Norse, Welsh, Irish, Ancient Hebrews, and Solutreans [DNA evidence of Africans arriving 50,000 years ago not included] all made it to the Americas much earlier than the mass murderer Columbus. 

Afghan Buddhist monks discovered America shows American historian in 1885 (archive.org)

 

Tibetans (China) brought pueblos to Natives

In 455 AD Buddhist missionaries -- Chinese Hwui Shen and Afghan Buddhist monks -- brought the world-religion of Buddhism to the Native Americans 1,037 years before Columbus, the Conquistadors and Cortes, and European Christian-Catholic missionaries in general.
 
Buddhist missionaries made it to Mexico via California (when California was part of Mexico) according to surviving records (see Minute 8:20). The Chumash (Native Americans from Los Angeles, the Channel islands, and Santa Barbara along the coast of Southern California) were even visited by the Polynesians (Min. 34:20). What hard evidence, apart from written histories, is there for all this?

 

Avoiding European invasion and genocid

Some maritime archaeological artifacts were found in our very own Los Angeles (Min. 11:20). By the time the Welsh set off for the New World, the magnificent Buddhist Khmer Empire of Cambodia was completing Angkor Wat (Min. 20:00), the greatest urban city of the time with a million suburban inhabitants made of stone in the jungle just like those in Mexico and Mesoamerica/Central America built by the Maya, Olmec, Toltec, Inca, and Aztec empires. 

 

But let's rebuild the ships, trace the routes, test the artifacts, and analyze blood evidence to finally learn the answer to one of the greatest mysteries of all time -- Who really discovered America?

• VIDEO: Proof Chinese brought Buddhism to America
• Why would the Smithsonian and others hide history? (Forbidden Archeology with Michael Cremo) 
• Christoph Columbus was JEWISH, historians argue

Convert them like this, Columbus (Daily Mail)

Scholars now believe that Italian mass murderer Columbus was actually a Marrano, a "secret Jew," who feigned conversion to Catholicism. Historians say five clues to the explorer's faith can be found in his will. His famous voyage was funded not by the Queen of Spain, but by three prominent Jews -- and he first updated them on the progress of his quest. One new theory even suggests he may have been looking for a safe haven for Jews persecuted and driven out of Spain...

No, comments Lorenzo Damas: Search "Christopher Columbus History Turned Upside-Down by New Polish Biography." Historian Manuel Rosa has these links in his book “Kolumb: Historia Nieznana” (published May 8, 2012 in Poland), translated from the Spanish book “Colon: La Historia Nunca Contada. Jews weren't persecuted in Spain until later, and that will is a forgery.

World's largest cave: Buddhist Vietnam (video)

Vicki Win, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Cindy Hong/NatGeoTV.com; ABS Travel, Asia

Descending into "Eden," a lush and otherworldly cave system, Son Doong (abstravel.asia)

Man on bridge, Mountain River Cave

Buddhist Vietnam's Son Doong or "Mountain River" Cave is part of the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park grotto system in Vietnam's central Quang Binh Province. It is the world's largest cave to ever be discovered. Son Doong, which was found by a local more than 20 years ago, is more than 200 meters wide, 150 meters high, and at least 6.5 kilometers long.

(NatGeo) Carsten Peter is a photographer, climber, diver, and caver in some

of the world's most extreme environments like Hang Son Doong cave system.

Rappelling to go spilunking

But explorers say they have been unable to explore it fully. British researchers have recently determined that Son Doong is much larger than the world's biggest known cave.

The biggest section of Son Doong is five kms in length, explains Howard Limbirt of the British Cave Research Association team searching the area April 10-14, 2009. Son Doong is much larger than Deer Cave in Malaysia, currently considered the world's largest, an explorer said. (Deer Cave is only 90 meters wide, 100 meters high, and two kms long). More (ABStravel.asia)
 

Tent camping at the cave entrance for travel deep into Son Doong (abstravel.asia)

New species discovered in 2013 (photos)

Wisdom Quarterly; LiveScience.com 

While 2013 may not have been the year that saw a Sasquatch shot dead (that happened in October of 2010) or a Chupacabras captured alive, the past year boasted a surprising number of newly-discovered species. From the adorable dwarf lemur (pictured) to the ghastly ghost shrimp of Catalina Island, California, a vast array of remarkable new animals and plants were found in both remote locations as well as more familiar locales (some near the LAX runway). For a look at 13 of the most breathtaking animal and plant discoveries of 2013, check out this gallery at LiveScience.

Cambodia: "A River Changes Course" (film)

Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Kalyanee Mam; Film Festivals and Indie Films; LA Times

Theravada monks in front of Angkor, once the world's largest religious monument

Legacy of the CIA and Khmer Rouge

Twice a year in Theravada Buddhist Cambodia, the Tonle Sap river changes course, while the metaphorical river of life flows in a perpetual cycle of death and rebirth, creation and destruction. Working in an intimate and cinema vérité style, filmmaker Kalyanee Mam (director of photography for the Oscar-winning documentary "Inside Job") spent two years in her native homeland following three young Cambodians struggling to overcome the crushing effects of deforestation, overfishing, and overwhelming debt. A breathtaking and unprecedented journey from the remote, mountainous jungles and floating cities of the Cambodian countryside to the bustling garment factories of its modern capital Phnom Penh, "A River Changes Course" traces a remarkable and devastatingly beautiful story of a country torn between the rural present and an ominous industrial future.

• Travel guide: Introducing Cambodia (Lonely Planet)
• Khmer Studies Forum screening of documentary 

Amazing discovery in Cambodia!

"River" reveals a Cambodia in crisis

Susan King (latimes.com, Oct. 10, 2013)

Filmmaker Kalyanee Mam grew up with an unbridled passion for her native Cambodia. Though she was just a toddler when she and her family fled the country in 1979 and settled in Stockton (California), her parents would tell Mam and her siblings about the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979, tempered with stories of the country's rich culture, history, and beauty. "I always had this strong sense I wanted to return to my homeland and to understand..." More

(TheLipTV) Kalyanee Mam talks about her documentary MORE

Massive Chinese cave found with own weather

Wisdom Quarterly; FreeRadioRevolution; Sarah Griffiths, Telegraph.co.uk, Oct. 2, 2013

Crystal pools at Er Wang Dong (Caters News)

The cave is so huge that it has its own weather system: Explorers discover a lost world with thick cloud and fogs trapped inside. The (Er Wang Dong) cave system was discovered in the Chongquing province of China by a team of cavers and photographers. Caver Robbie Shone, from Manchester, England, said a few of the caves had previously been used by nitrate miners but had not been properly explored. The network, which includes "cloud Ladder Hall" measuring around 51,000 meters squared, has water sources and vegetation on the floor. Adventurers have stumbled across a cave so enormous that it has its own weather system, complete with wispy clouds and lingering fog inside vast caverns. More

Red Deer Cave Man discovered in China may be new human