j7uy5 | December 29, 2006This is my sister's bulldog, doing what it loves the most.
You've got to be careful when doing this, though.
It took a while to get this shot, to get one that was not blurry.
The dog kept jerking his head back and forth.
j7uy5 | December 28, 2006CNN has a
href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/12/27/brazil.anorexia.ap/index.html">report
about a cluster of deaths from Anorexia, in Brazil.
The subject has become a morbid fascination for
Brazilians, and is even the theme of a popular TV soap opera. It has
also touched off a debate within Brazil's fashion industry that has
long presented the rail-thin model as the paragon of female beauty.
The objection I have is that the article provides the heights and
weights of the women at their time of death. I don't think
there is any way that the journalists or editors would know…
j7uy5 | December 28, 2006This
adds to my respect for Gerald Ford.
Ford: Bush made 'big mistake' on Iraq
justifications
11:07 p.m. EST, December 27, 2006
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In an interview never before published, former
President Gerald Ford said President Bush and his chief advisers "made
a big mistake" with their justifications for the Iraq war.
Ford made the comments in a four-hour interview in 2004 with Washington
Post reporter Bob Woodward...
Ford was regarded as a man with a quiet style who was not quick to
criticize, Woodward and others who worked with him said on "Larry
King."
Ford requested…
j7uy5 | December 27, 2006I have a confession to make. I once voted for a Republican
Presidential candidate. That candidate was Gerald Ford.
Why? Several reasons. For one, it was my
first time voting, so I was not very good at it yet. Two,
even though I was upset about the pardon of Nixon, and unimpressed by
his handling of the economy, I thought he was sincere and honest.
Three, I thought he had been chosen deliberately to be a
noncontroversial "placeholder" president; not someone who was
interested in a power grab.
One of the areas where some liberals and some conservatives agree is
this: concentration…
j7uy5 | December 27, 2006NEJM has a very interesting article about the use of PET
scans to differentiate between persons with normal cognitive function,
those with mild cognitive dysfunction, and those with Alzheimer
Disease (AD). Unfortunately, you need a subscription to view
the
full article, but you can read the abstract for free, so I've taken the
liberty of copying it here, then providing some plain-language
commentary. You also can read a more extensive review on
href="http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/549894">Medscape
(free registration required).
href="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract…
j7uy5 | December 26, 2006It's kind of technical, but interesting if you care about the inner
workings of the machine you are using to read this post.
Microsoft Vista has built in an elaborate system to prevent
copying of protected digital content. In so doing, Microsoft
has imposted stringent requirements on hardware manufacturers.
They also have created a system that will have built-in
performance penalties. The digital content will have to be
encrypted and decrypted many times, as it passes from the DVD drive, to
the CPU, the sound card, the video card. All that adds
overhead to the various processors. It…
j7uy5 | December 26, 2006Several bloggers have already commented on Johnson &
Johnson's new schizophrenia drug,
rel="tag">Invega®. The official
FDA announcement is
href="http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2006/NEW01534.html">here.
The first blog post I saw was at
href="http://garrettsparks.blogspot.com/2006/12/medicine-jj-wins-fda-approval-for.html">Sparkgrass:
I'd hate for somebody to have to come up with, ya
know, a new drug. Not to say that a longer acting atypical isn't a nice
addition to the palette, but the fact that J&J's stock is
suddenly worth more because their chemists did some…
j7uy5 | December 25, 2006And what could be better than this?
href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6189793.stm">End
of the neo-con dream
By Paul Reynolds
World Affairs correspondent
The neo-conservative dream faded in 2006.
The ambitions proclaimed when the neo-cons' mission statement "The
Project for the New American Century" was declared in 1997 have turned
into disappointment and recriminations as the crisis in Iraq has grown.
"The Project for the New American Century" has been reduced
to a voice-mail box and a ghostly website. A single employee has been
left to wrap things up... […
j7uy5 | December 23, 2006You'd think we'd be done with this. Actually, maybe we are,
because now the controversy has moved to the UK:
href="http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,1978595,00.html">Row
over cancer jab plan for all schoolgirls
Mass vaccination 'will save lives'
Parents fear rise in underage sex
Gaby Hinsliff, political editor
Sunday December 24, 2006
The Observer
Schoolgirls as young as 12 are to be vaccinated against a sexually
transmitted disease linked to cervical cancer, under controversial
plans being drawn up by the Department of Health.
Millions of girls would be…
j7uy5 | December 23, 2006I've been following the fish oil story for a while, ever since a
href="http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/56/5/407">small
study in 1999 showed potential benefit in patients with
bipolar disorder. The theoretical basis for the study was
that omega-3 fatty acids alter neurotransmission in a way that is
similar to lithium and valproic acid. A
href="http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/163/6/969">recent
review in Am J Psych. Says the same thing that most other
articles have said over the past seven years:
CONCLUSIONS: Deficits in omega-3 fatty acids…
j7uy5 | December 22, 2006The reason it is interesting, is that it is unexpected, to me
at least. I'm always curious when it turns out that something
known to affect one bodily system turns out to have an effect somewhere
else.
Enalapril
is a drug used to treat high blood pressure. It works by
slowing the action of an enzyme. The enzyme, angiotensin
converting enzyme, is part of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system.
I guess it is too complicated to go in to detail here, and it
is not really the point. The point is that there is a system
in your body that regulates blood pressure by monitoring the kidneys to…
j7uy5 | December 21, 2006This was one of those snap quizzes, where you read an article, answer a
couple questions, and get 0.25 CME credits. It had to do with
biomarkers for cardiac risk. After plowing through a ton of
obscure information about CRP, urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio, and
things like that, I get to the test questions:
A
65-year-old man with a history of diabetes, hypertension, and
dyslipidemia presents with chest pain. He is a nonsmoker. Which of the
following is not a contributing risk factor for the
development of cardiovascular disease in this patient? (
class="cmetag">Required for…
j7uy5 | December 21, 2006So, here I go into Border's last night. Spend $95. Everyone is happy.
Then this morning, I get up and they've sent me an email, with a coupon: $20 off a $100 purchase, before 12/24. It came in at 1:27 AM, about six hours too late.
j7uy5 | December 20, 2006PZ's post on Crichton reminded me to point this out. For
those of you who don't know, Michael Crichton got kind of nasty, paying
back a critic by making up a character in a book. The made-up
character had just enough similarity to let us know who he was getting
back at. Details are
href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/12/bad_writers_shouldnt_piss_off.php">here.
His reputation is taking a big hit because of it.
There is more detail
href="http://markmaynard.com/index.php/2006/12/14/crichton_has_an_o_j_like_moment_but_with">here.
For those of you who don't already know…
j7uy5 | December 19, 2006A hospital in the UK has reported an outbreak of nasty MRSA infections.
This time, the organisms are the PVL-producing MRSA.
MRSA stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
PVL stands for Panton-Valentine leukocidin. PVL is
a toxin produced by the bacteria. As the name suggests, it
kills white blood cells.
href="http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2083867.ece">PVL:
New strain of superbug targets the young, and its latest victim is an
NHS nurse
By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 18 December 2006
A nurse and a patient have died from a…
j7uy5 | December 18, 2006Psychiatrists sometimes try to get people to take omega-3 fatty acids,
in order to reduce symptoms of mood disorders. Although the
evidence is not rock-solid, it is fairly good. There is no
evidence that it can hurt, and some evidence that it can help with
cardiovascular health. I've mentioned all that before.
But I've never yet run into anything like this:
Recipe for better sex: What to eat to add spice
By Forbes.com staff
src="http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Sources/Local/sourceForbes.gif"
border="0" height="20" hspace="0" vspace="0"
width="140">
Updated: 1:16 p…
j7uy5 | December 18, 2006Ever hear the phrase, "well, it's not brain surgery!" It
seems to imply that brain surgery is a tricky business, requiring a
high level of knowledge and skill. Perhaps it does.
If you have ever been curious about exactly what brain
surgery entails, now you can find out. What's more, you can
find out what it is like from the patient's perspective.
Since the brain surgery done on Senator Johnson has been
href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16199440/">in the news,
you may be curious about it.
href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/6174489.stm">Wide
awake having…
j7uy5 | December 17, 2006Our system, who art on raised tile,
Hallowed be thy OS.
Thy portage come, thy emerge be done,
On servers, as it is on workstations.
Give us this day, our daily sync,
And forgive us our broken ebuilds,
As we forgive those who break ebuilds against us.
Lead us not into dependency frustration,
But deliver us from rpm evil.
For thine is the make.conf, the USE flags,
And the profile forever...
Gentoo.
Sincerely,
Jason Johnson
Unix Systems Admin
Oracle Corporation
href="http://www.sabayonlinux.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=245&Itemid=2">source
j7uy5 | December 17, 2006We were asked to describe the most notable instance of harsh criticism
experienced in our professional careers, and to say whether it was
helpful or harmful.
Naturally, most of us are our own harshest critics, so my harshest
criticism came from myself.
What is odd, is the way this came about and affected me.
During one of the first rotations in my second year of residency, at
the end, the attending gave me an assessment form. It
appeared to be a form for me to use to describe my experience in the
rotation.
I dutifully filled it out, have gotten used to doing paperwork that
seemed…