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Cost of the War in Iraq
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LINKS The people listed below have achieved great things in their life. We should try to emulate their spirit.
Art
Salvador Dali (1904-1989) - "Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy — the joy of being Salvador Dalí — and I ask myself in rapture, ‘What wonderful things this Salvador Dalí is going to accomplish today?" How can you not love that? He used to walk a pet ocelet in New York City. The guy was one of a kind, one of the greatest artists who ever lived. Check out the Hallucinogenic Toreador, unbelievably intricate.
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) - Artist, painter, sculptor, musician, engineer, scientist, inventor. Advanced military technology: foresaw the tank, submarine, grenade, machine gun, streamlined design for missiles and cannons. He sketched flying machines, self-propelled vehicles, a waterpowered saw, screw-cutting lathe, pile driver, accurate renderings of human anatomy and organ systems. Invented water skis and scuba gear, designed a parachute. The list is endless. He painted the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. The prototypical Renaissance man.
M.C. Escher (1898-1972) - "I don't grow up. In me is the small child of my early days". "So let us then try to climb the mountain, not by stepping on what is below us, but to pull us up at what is above us, for my part at the stars; amen". His work explored mathematical ideas, geometry, spacial illusions, self-reference and metamorphoses. Relativity and Concave and Convex are two of my favorites.
Music
Beatles - Greatest rock and roll band.
Led Zeppelin - Most magical and powerful rock and roll band. You know you're big when Paul McCartney refers to you in a song.
Pink Floyd - 3 of the greatest rock albums. Dark Side cover.
Van Halen - Best American band of the last 25 years. Most influential modern electric guitarist.
Jimi Hendrix - Move over Rover. Jimi being commanded by the Strat.
Steve Vai - Sickest guitar player on the planet. He might not be human.
Yngwie Malmsteen - How can you not like Yngwie?
Science
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) - Our modern world would not be possible without him. He invented the Tesla Coil and the alternating current induction motor, considered one of the ten greatest inventions of all time. Among his discoveries are: fluorescent light, laser beam, wireless communications, wireless transmission of electrical energy, remote control, robotics, Tesla's turbines and vertical take-off aircraft. Father of the radio and modern electrical transmissions systems. Tesla registered over 700 patents worldwide.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) - Physicist, cosmologist, philosopher, social humanist. His contributions propelled science beyond the limits of the Newtonian view of the universe. Originated or greatly added to understanding of: special theory of relativity, general theory of relativity, prediction of warped space, theory of stimulated emission (the laser), nature of atomic behavior through important debates with Niels Bohr, cosmology (the expanding universe), and unified field theory. See his 1939 letter to FDR warning of a nuclear chain reaction. See him stick his tongue out here.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) - This man turned the world upside down. With his experiments on falling bodies, he disproved Aristotle's nearly 2000 year old accepted view that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects. He invented, discovered or significantly improved the design of: the water pump, the hydrostatic balance, the thermometer, the sector (measuring device), the pendulum clock (possibly before Christiaan Huygens), the principle of flotation, the laws of equilibrium, an explanation of the tides, and of course the TELESCOPE. With the telescope, he was able to prove the Copernican theory that the earth revolves around the sun. For his efforts, he was branded a heretic, forced to make a public retraction of his beliefs and spent the last 9 years of his life under house arrest. He went blind in 1638 most likely from looking at the sun carelessly and died the year Isaac Newton was born.
Politics
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) - One of America's greatest citizens. Statesman, inventor, printer, philanthropist, philosopher, musician, revolutionary and economist. He invented, discovered or originated the following: Bifocals, odometer, Franklin stove, lightning rod, rocking chair, glass armonica, Gulf Stream, Daylight Savings Time, street lamp, nature of electricity and lightning, public library, public fire department, fire insurance, post office, ventilation systems, modern dentistry, commercial advertising, political cartoons, etc. The list actually goes on, he was incredible.
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