gregladen | February 1, 2009An interesting essay ...
...Debra Lee, chief executive of Black Entertainment Television, has been on Washington's A-list for some time, but she has been even more popular since Nov. 4, receiving invites from folks she doesn't really know.
"The first reaction is: 'Wow. Isn't that curious? Are they just using me?' " she said. "Then you think about Obama, who says he wants to be inclusive."
At the same time, an invitation to Lee's home is an even hotter ticket, after Jarrett and incoming White House social secretary Desiree Rogers showed up for one of her late-night parties last month. On…
gregladen | February 1, 2009Meteors are falling on your head all the time, or so it is said. I've heard that you can collect meteorites by sifting through the stuff that accumulates in your gutters with a magnet. The magnet ignores the silica rock and tarry stuff that your roof is made of, but picks up the iron bits which tend to be meteoric dust. I'm not sure if I believe that, but this is what is said.
One of the best places to get meteorites is in Antarctica, because they land on ice instead of land, and are thus not mixed up with non meteoric rocky stuff, they stand out on the background, and there are certain…
gregladen | February 1, 2009This exhibit. Worth a look if you are in the area. Let me know what you think of it!
some details.
gregladen | February 1, 2009A bill that would have mandated that partners in civil unions be added to all state insurance laws was put on hold just as House committee was about to hold a hearing on the measure.
Rep. Edward Butler (D), the bill's sponsor, pulled the legislation, saying there were other measures dealing with same-sex couples that should be considered first.
Among those is a proposal to change New Hampshire's year old civil union law to allow for full marriage. A hearing on that bill is scheduled for Feb. 5.
Republicans have filed a bill that would start the process to amend the state constitution to ban…
gregladen | January 31, 2009The Monaco Declaration (PDF) warns of the dangers to our oceans if we don't terminate the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. The oceans are becoming increasingly acidic thanks the to rise in the levels of CO2 brought about by the industrial age. This is leading to the reduction of habitable space for coral. So, what, you say?
Details here.
gregladen | January 30, 2009A paper coming out in the next issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases addresses the question of the link between vaccines and autism. This new review article examines three hypotheses linking vaccines to autism:
(1) the combination measlesâmumpsârubella vaccine causes autism by damaging the intestinal lining, which allows the entrance of encephalopathic proteins;
(2) thimerosal, an ethylmercuryâcontaining preservative in some vaccines, is toxic to the central nervous system; and
(3) the simultaneous administration of multiple vaccines overwhelms or weakens the immune system.
The…
gregladen | January 28, 2009Does Spirit have a Boyfriend? Or may be a little drug habit? NASA is perplexed:
PASADENA, Calif. - The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit plans diagnostic tests this week after Spirit did not report some of its weekend activities, including a request to determine its orientation after an incomplete drive.
Very suspicious. I'd start keeping track of the odometer if I was NASA.
On Sunday, during the 1,800th Martian day, or sol, of what was initially planned as a 90-sol mission on Mars, information radioed from Spirit indicated the rover had received its driving commands…
gregladen | January 28, 2009But it might be worth thumbing through it just for fun ...
You must be over 18 to read the rest of tis blog post.
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Natural Harvest - A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes
Semen is not only nutritious, but it also has a wonderful texture and amazing cooking properties. Like fine wine and cheeses, the taste of semen is complex and dynamic. Semen is inexpensive to produce and is commonly available in many, if not most, homes and restaurants.
But employees must wash their hands before returning to work ...
Despite all of these…
gregladen | January 28, 2009The rightful place of science is moving, never staying in one place, ever dancing and watching, on the always shifting sociopolitical landscape.
A team of white coated eggheads can solve any problem with enough science. We need to get rid of the Jews, and we don't have enough bullets, so let's get the eggheads to figure out a way to do that. We need to take the Americans out of the Pacific, but we have insufficient resources but a lot of pilots. Let's get the engineers to come up with a one-way airplane. We need to get rid of the Nazis and Imperialist Japanese, and we hear the Eggheads…
gregladen | January 26, 2009A strain of drug-resistant staph identified in pigs in the Netherlands five years ago, which accounts for nearly one third of all staph in humans there, has been found in the U.S. for the first time, according to a new study.
Seventy percent of 209 pigs and nine of 14 workers on seven linked farms in Iowa and Illinois were found to be carrying the ST398 strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
The study marks the first time researchers have tested for the strain in the U.S., so there's no way yet to tell when or how it arrived or how widespread it may be, says Tara Smith…
gregladen | January 26, 2009At 1:00 PM Central Time court procedings being in the Franken-Coleman senate race. A three judge state court will ultimately hear and rule on a lawsuit essentially filed by Coleman's team. The suit, an "election contest," alleges a number of problems with the current nearly-certified recount which gives Franken a small lead over Coleman.
All of these issues have been previously aired, and some but not all addressed by the State Canvassing Board. Most analysts currently believe that none of these alleged problems are real, or material in relation to the outcome of this election. Coleman…
gregladen | January 26, 2009In an astonishing demonstration of the evils of Marketing in a Research University Context, the University of Leicester today announced that an upcoming research project would find a link between coffee consumption by pregnant women and leukemia to develop later in their offspring.
This is a statement made by scientists involved in the Research That Has Not Yet Been Done:
Although there's no evidence at all of a link between caffeine and cancer, we're putting two and two together and saying: caffeine can induce these changes and it has been shown that these changes are elevated in leukaemia…
gregladen | January 26, 2009I thought we already knew this, but here goes:
Schizophrenia may blur the boundary between internal and external realities by over-activating a brain system that is involved in self-reflection, and thus causing an exaggerated focus on self, a new MIT and Harvard brain imaging study has found.
The traditional view of schizophrenia is that the disturbed thoughts, perceptions and emotions that characterize the disease are caused by disconnections among the brain regions that control these different functions.
But this study, appearing Jan. 19 in the advance online issue of the Proceedings of the…
gregladen | January 25, 2009Everyone has pieces of literature or art that have influenced them the most. For me, it's this: