Typhoon update

It was supposed to hit south of us, but now it took a northward turn and should hit north of us...no rain yet.

We have the first harvest in, but some fields won't be ready to harvest for another week or two....

Music for the Holiday season

Want to listen to beautiful choral music for the Christmas season, instead of the Chipmunk song?

Check the link....
=================
And the Vatican has music downloads LINK
and LINK

===========
To listen to classical music, try BBC

The daily classic download link at the left is a UK radio station that alas won't play in Asia.

Another classic music radio is Classic archives....and they have downloads at this site...loads of music, mostly of Russian orchestras...and a very low fee.

Christmas gift ideas

AmericanDigest has some tongue in cheek suggestions at link...only for those with a twisted R rated sense of humor

Forget the FBI: The MPAA is spying on you

Hollywood is losing money, so they are going after college students who use peer to peer downloads...

And the Democrats are helping them do it, by putting it into a bill that mandates colleges to spy on students.
Bush spies on suspicious emails to prevent terrorism, and it's the front page. Harry Reid sponsors a bill mandating spying on college students, no problem.

The problem is not only that they will spy, but the WAPo computer geek notes that the program being offered "voluntarily" to colleges essentially allows hackers to break into the entire university network, since few of these networks have sophisticated firewall security to counteract the "feedback" part of the Hollywood program.

longer post at BNN...

Poultry jokes

While checking on the cull of 70,000 chickens in the UK for bird flu, I discovered the Would Poultry web page has a joke page:
All groaners.

Here's one for Thanksgiving:

Q.Why did the turkey cross the road? A.To prove he wasn't a chicken. Sent in by: Wayne Daggett (Ohio, USA)

Philippine news

Another day, another typhoon...will hit south of here, so no problem with the winds...but the rains are another problem...

The bad news is that it is moving very slowly, and it is the end of the harvest sesason here...and of course mudslides and flooding, with disease threats, are always a problem...as a precaution water was released from a dam in Bulacan, resulting in villages being flooded...

Our main problem here is problems with our pump (we have a private deep well)....no water again this morning. If worse comes to worse, we'll have to just hook up with the city water supply...

Invention of the day

Take your treefrog out for a quick flight....
(headsup DarkRoastedBlend).

Procrastination

(Caption: I'll add a picture a little later)
(Headsup GrouchyoldcrippleBlog)

Big stem cell breakthrough

Scientists in Univ Wisc and Japan figure out how to make adult cells go back to an embryonic state. It could eliminate the need for cloning.
The above link is to my BNN essay...

Recipes recipes....

Left over Turkey? Try these recipes.

Here in the Philippines, we had Shrimp this year.

Molasses cookies YUM...

And why have a dull ordinary round pecan pie, when you can have a GIANT FRACTAL PECAN PIE?

Or if you are tired of flat pies, how about a modular Pie cosahedron?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

There'll always be an England...

Until 1999, British nuclear weapons could be opened with a coin or ordinary screwdriver, and a common wrench....and forget having to enter a code...
Passwords? We don't need no stinkin' passwords....

The bomb is actually armed by inserting a cylindrical bicycle lock key into the arming switch and turning it through 90 degrees.

How to recharge your ipod

(headsup YummyWakame)

How to cook a turkey

The above link at cooking for engineers has a photo instruction on how to cook a turkey.
They stuff it with veggies, but I prefer to make stovetop stuffing...

The most interesting clue is that they advise to start cooking it upside down, and then rotate with every basting, so the drumsticks get adequately cooked while protecting the breasts from drying out.

The Athiest and the bear

An atheist was walking through the woods.
"What majestic trees"!
"What powerful rivers"!
"What beautiful animals"!
He said to himself.

As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him.
He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him.
[image]
He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing in on him.

He looked over his shoulder again, & the bear was even closer. He tripped & fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw & raising his right paw to strike him.
[image]

At that instant the Atheist cried out, "Oh my God!"

Time Stopped.
The bear froze.
The forest was silent.

As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky. "You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don't exist and even credit creation to cosmic accident." "Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer"?
The atheist looked directly into the light, "It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian"?

"Very Well," said the voice.

The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head & spoke:
[image]
"Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen."
---------------
Your email of the day from Col. Updraft

Family news

I slept most of the last 24 hours...will take a few days to get over jet lag but at least I am now awake.

The cat is pregnant, but the dog and puppies have now moved out of the bedroom (puppies are at the "cute but dirty" stage), and the watch dog Puti got out a couple times when Lolo went jogging and bit a bunch of people....none badly, just enough to ask us to pay for antibiotics etc.

And the cat or dog ate up my easy chair, my internet wire (I have to use wireless now) and Lolo's TV hearing earphones. Sigh.

Otherwise everything is okay.

Little women

Librivox has the audio book LITTLE WOMEN for download...

Time waster of the day

This is your mouse.

This is your mouse on drugs....

Headsup Sciblogs...

Good news...

Even the NYTimes has finally noticed the improvements in Baghdad...
And this AFP article says the same thing...locals rightly attribute it to the increased ability of the Iraqi government to stop the bad guys...which of course is true...but it helps both sides to know that the American's aren't pulling out....it's sorta like keeping the US in South Korea for 50 years...just to remind the bad guys that if they try something the big 400 lb gorilla is still around...

Carolyn Glick of the Jerusalem Post has an article reprinted HERE...most of it is about stopping Iran from nuking her, but the important paragraph is about the WMD from Iraq, and whether or not that hushed up airstrike in Syria by Israel was to destroy them:

the head of the non-governmental International Intelligence Summit, John Loftus, released a report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program... "The gist of the new evidence is this: Roughly one-quarter of Saddam's WMD was destroyed under UN pressure during the early to mid 1990s. Saddam sold approximately another quarter of his weapons stockpile to his Arab neighbors during the mid-to-late-1990's. The Russians insisted on removing another quarter in the last few months before the war. The last remaining WMD, the contents of Saddam's nuclear weapons labs, were still inside Iraq on the day when the coalition forces arrived in 2003. His nuclear weapons equipment was hidden in enormous underwater warehouses beneath the Euphrates River. Saddam's entire nuclear inventory was later stolen from these warehouses right out from under the Americans' noses."

Headlines below the fold

PhysOrg has lots of stuff today.

Did Noah's ark kickstart European farming?LINK
Global warming in 8000 BC is a warning for global warming in the near future..
--------------------
Gender roles, not discrimination, the cause of women lagging behind men in science...sounds about right. If I never had kids or a husband, I would have had more time to "work"...luckily I always found jobs to juggle both...but of course I never earned as much as my classmates...

And more good news for moms: Fewer moms are dying in childbirth...
--------------
The cutting edge of Alzheimer's research is getting rid of the amyloid that kills brain cells...LINK...which is why the propaganda about embryonic stem cells curing Alzheimer's was just that: propaganda...
in the meanwhile, although the monkey clones were "virgin birth" and may not have the same ethical problems, another adult stem cell breakthrough suggests adult stem cells, which are cheaper and easier to get, could work as well...

-------------------

The NYTimes has an article about caretakers...my take is HERE: it's not about helping families, but subsidizing large health care industries that provide care takers, while helping Hillary win the election...you see, those who don't hire care takers but quit or cut back on work to care for the elderly themselves won't get the tax write off...

Heh!

Carnagie Mellon Univ has evaluated a way to most efficiently find stories on the internet...

Top 100 blogs for unit cost case and population affected objective function

If I can read 100 blogs, which should I read to be most up to date?

Number one on the list of "news" blogs is Instapundit...the only other "top ten" for news I read is boingboing...nope, farc didn't get in the top ten...

Earthrise

Archie the cockroach

Archie, the poet cockroach...

And if you want to hear Garrison Keillor's narration of an Archie poem, listen HERE.

Mummy facts

go to link...

Herding cockroaches

coat a robot cockroach with a phrenome (sex hormone) and the other roaches will interact with the robot, and change their behavior...like staying in the light so you can step on them instead of hiding in a dark crack where you have to use chemicals to kill the little roaches.

The flower lady of Arlington

Family news

I'll be flying home to the Philippines tomorrow morning, so may be off line for 48 hours...

Pumpkin ale

Hate Pumpkin pie?
Have a pumpkin ale and get drunk instead....

Or you can use this recipe to brew it yourself
.
.
.

It's a pumpkin world

Cat joke of the day

at the swim meet

Stuff below the fold

Two longer rants I posted on BNN...

One is that the "80percent increase in Army desertions" is really only increasing the percentage from 0.7% to 0.9 %...both numbers under 1%...LINK

The other is about amazon's ebook...but instead I'm investing in a eeepc mini computer...but they are so hot it's on backorder, so Luke will check it out until one of the relalatives link brings it along.

Robin's family

Click on photo to go to webalbum..

Robin's Family

Headlines below the fold

I scanned the headlines, and they were full of politics. UGGH.

There was an earthquake near my son's town in colombia, but when I checked the earthquake site of the National Geological survey earthquake page only mentions the one near Ecuador but the IRIS site shows two: and has the one furthur north near the Colombia border...the areas are very rural and isolated villages in valleys, so no bad reports yet...

You can tell the US press has it's heart in the right place when Quinto playing Spock gets more headlines than two major South American earthquakes.

Have a green Christmas

All the puritans will be complaining about all that energy wasted on Holiday lighting

But just buy LED Christmas lights, and save money and energy.

What to do with a left over Iron

Don't throw out that left over Iron...or motorcycle.

Recycle it into a nice lamp...

Catholic joke of the day

Muldoon lived alone in the Irish countryside with

only a pet dog for company. One day the dog died,

and Muldoon went to the parish priest and asked,

'Father, me dog is dead. Could ya' be saying' a mass for the poor creature?'

Father Patrick replied, 'I'm afraid not; we cannot

have services for an animal in the church. But there

are some Baptists down the lane, and there's no tellin'

what they believe. Maybe they'll do something for the creature.'

Muldoon said, 'I'll go right away Father. Do

ya' think $5,000 is enough to donate to them for the service?'

Father Patrick exclaimed, 'Oh, that's different.

Why didn`t ya tell me the dog was Catholic?'

--------------------

your email of the day from Col Updraft

Gift for air travelers

Why wait for the Xrays?

Buy one of these, and everyone can see you are carrying dangerous items such as Jack Daniels or ipods...

Tee Shirt of the day

Bombing suspects killed/arrested?

police using a warrant for previous bombs raided a house in QC and ended up in a fire fight...there is a suspicion that the group was behind last week's bombing of the Pinoy Congresspeople.

cat brain

headsup Misscellanea

The new alternative drink

for Linux fans only....
.

.and for other Open Source Colas and recipes check HERE
.
.
.

How to make a G rated viagra commercial

From Saudi TV

Hollywood theives and the Hobbit

Entertainment weekly has a story about the Hobbit...Jackson has a feud about residual payments for LOTR; some of those defrauded are suing for money, but Jackson apparantly is suing for the right to audit their books...and the courts just fined New Line 100 thousand plus for not supplying the books.

The excuse is, of course, that the hits profits are taken to offset the loses, but the stars and producers get paid up front, even if it's not a hit....which is why stars and directors will get paid for making lousy anti American propaganda films

About the only good news is that it might lead to writers/directors being willing to make and distribute movies using the new technology.

LINK discusses how the "silicon valley" model might work for distribution, which is the "bottleneck" that keeps people in the studio system.

YUM!

People have been enjoying chocolate for more than 3,000 years—about 500 years earlier than previously believed, according to a new study.

Researchers also think that chocolate was discovered by accident—when Central American Indians making beer from the pulp of cacao seedpods found a new use for a byproduct of that process.

So, if you love chocolate, thank the ancient beermakers for discovering how to ferment cacao beans to make delicious chocolate...

And HERE are instructions to make your own chocolate beer...
or just buy it from Sam Adams

Ten best family games

TeenyManolo has a list of the ten best family games...

Scrabble, Monopoly, etc.

Yes fashion can be beautiful

The Anchoress links to a site of bridal saris as an example of beautiful fashions.

Even the website's "casual wear" is more beautiful (and more chaste) than the plain jane stuff we women are forced to buy----->

In Asia, we have both Indian channels and FashionTV. Along with anorexic and weird European fashions, sometimes it shows fashions from Asia. So instead of geometrical tight and slutty fashion, we have an opportunity to see feminine fashion at it's best...

One way to drape a sari is found HERE

Philippine bomb probably terrorism

ABS CBN reports the bombs killing 4, including 2 congresspersons, was hidden on a motorcycle, surrounded by nails and set off by a carphone: All the marks of an Alqaeda bomb. They've been worried about this for awhile, since alqaeda trained JI terrorists from Indonesia have been instructing locals to make these bombs...and at least one such bomb making factory was destroyed by Philippine security last year.

CBS News: Combat veterans suicide expose misuses statistics

CBS has an "expose" on veterans suicide....the headline blares: Suicide epidemic among veterans...suicide rate of veterans is twice that of other Americans...

The problem is that it simply is not true.

Suicide is a terrible problem, and suicides are higher in those suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome and combat fatigue...but what disturbs me is that the analysis is poorly done.
My full analysis is on BNN where you can find all the nice references,but in summary

1) they compare veteran (mainly males) suicide data (suicide rate 18-20 per 100 000 population) to the general population (suicide rate of 11)...but a better comparison would be to the suicide rate of males ( 17)
By using the general population, the low suicide rate in females (4.6) distorts the picture.

2) by not defining who is a veteran in their data, the data might include those who never were in combat, or the elderly, whose suicide rate is much higher.
If the statistics on veterans come from the VA, we might see a different problem: the VA has an extensive mental health program, using VA statistics might artificially increase the statistics, since their population would be sicker medically and psychiatrically than those veterans who never used and never needed the VA system and were lost to follow up.

3) the only combat veteran group from Iraq whose statistics they cite is veterans from 45 states from age 20 to 25, where they cite a high rate of 22-31.

The problem is that many who serve in Iraq are older than this...the average age of National Guard members in Iraq is actually 33...so why do they highlight this age group? And are the numbers high enough to be statistically valid?

We don't know, because they never bother to give us the statistical analysis.
And they don't bother to inform you of the military's suicide prevention program, nor that Bush just signed a bill to increase VA funding for suicide prevention...

This is good news, since suicide is an ongoing problem in combat veterans, and it's just too early to tell how bad the problem will be. So yes, inform the public, but stop distorting statistics to "prove" veterans are all helpless victims. The suicide statistics do not prove that they are much worse off than their stay at home brethren.

And FYI: The suicide rate in doctors is between 28 an 40....higher than that cited by CBS for the younger, most vulnerable combat veterans.

Cartoon of the day

via Misscellania...

Headlines below the fold

Congressman from Basilan killed by a remote control bomb...my take HERE.

Manila is on high alert....
But I'm on visiting Robin in Tennessee, so not in any danger...
--------------------

Hicks nix peacenix pix...
Screenwriter Roger Simon explains: if you are an SOB, you make a self righteous movie to prove you have your heart in the right place.
-----------------

Violence in Baghdad down...Ralph Peters comments on how OJ in on the front page again...
--------------------------

Malaysia is going to make an Islamic car that includes a compass that points to Mecca...
Top Ten Other Features of Proton's New "Islamic Car":

10. Infidel-resistant fenders
9. Sensor warns if car is about to enter drive-through at Taco Bell
8. Extra-long seat belt to accommodate burqa
7. Horn plays two bars of Scheherazade
6. A feature patterned after OnStar calls CAIR and The New York Times in case of emergency
5. Special Saudi model keeps women in back seat
4. Warranted for six years/72 virgins
3. Will not start during Ramadan
2. Absolutely no plans for a hybrid
1. Self-destructs upon entering Jewish neighborhoods

See your dealer today. (Suggested by LGF.)

from Dustbury

Madeline's poster

This is the poster from madeline a couple years ago..
Madeline Lathroum, 10, took first place for Navy entrants.

"I just thought of it, drawing a carrier when my dad was (deployed to) Hawaii," Madeline said about her entry. "I was surprised. I didn't think I'd win."

Her dad, Navy Cmdr. John Lathroum, was pleased his daughter received the award.

"I just think it's really nice that something like this gives her a bit of positive feedback on something she really loves to do," Lathroum said.

Oy veh, am I having a bad hair day!

More photos at above link and at the Micropolitan Museum

YUM!

SCRATCH AND SNIFF Tutti Fruiti wallpaper...


They also sell pretty pink raincoats for your dog...somehow I don't think Puti would put up with this...

Craft item of the day

A glowing ice ball...

(headsup Scienceblogs)

Saudi fashion show

Hollywood notes

Hollywood's anti American propaganda films are tanking at the box office, but the IHT has the back story of Hollywood corruption behind the writer's strike...

Essentially, the stars and producers/directors get money no matter what (often with profits from different hit movies), and the rest of those working for the industry get a pittance even if the story is a hit....

Reminds me of Joseph Wambaugh who said he preferred working as a cop with ordinary thieves than with the Hollywood types.

Happy Veteran's day

And some are grateful for their work:

(Host) Sheik Ahmed Abu Risha spoke through a translator. He said his province has overcome terrorists and insurgents.

(Abu Risha) (voices shift back and forth from Arabic to English) ``Today in this state ... we present this victory ... to the families of the victims of the soldiers in Iraq ... and specifically express our appreciation to the state of Vermont.'' ...
(Host) James Soriano is a State Department official traveling with the Iraqi delegation. He says the sheik keeps a memento of the Vermonters' service.

(Soriano) ``And I said to him, `And you know we're going to go to the state of Vermont.' ... And, he said, `Vermont?' He said `There was a Vermont military unit which was stationed here in the Ramadi area.' He rose from his chair and went over to the shelf and pulled off the shelf a plaque, signed by the colonel and the sergeant-major, in the shape of the state of Vermont. He still had it on display."

Modern artist

Robin says hi to everone

Modern art, anyone?

Robin's latest wall hanging...

It's because I don't know any big words

Get a Cash Advance

Wife abuser dies, literery establishment sighs...

Norman Mailer, why by the time I was an adult was best known for trying to kill his wife and for being stoned all the time, has died.
Full rant at BNN

Blond joke of the day

Reading asignment for today

Austin Bay has a story about meeting a LtCol in an airport, and about those who understand...

And I agree, not because Lolo is a veteran, or even because John is back in the Gulf...but because those who bomb markets and kill civilians in Mindanao, Afghanistan, or Baghdad need to be destroyed....

And the dirty little secret that I learned as a missionary in Africa is that they kill civilians because they can...why risk your life killing a soldier when you can kill a nun or a teacher or school kids who can't shoot back, and feel like a hero?

And the irony is that the same "peace and liberation" types that funded the "freedom fighters" who killed Sister Rita and 37 other of my fellow missionaries now ignore the human rights atrocities of the regieme they essentially put into place, while going on and feeling "self righteous" about their Bush hatred.

end of rant

Gift Item of the day

I Heart Plush guts...and lungs...and kidneys..

Sign of the day

The Five Scariest Downloads

LINK...

AGHHH...digital hairdressing salon!

Chuck Norris Widget!...

------------------
Right now, I'm using my grandson Luke's Macbook, so catch the video re the difference between Mac and Windows...

AGHHH the bluescreen of death vs the beachball of death...
-----

of course, at home I use Gutsy Gibbon, so nyahnyahnyah...

LOTR origami

LINK

------------------------

and for all those Ron Paul fans out there, This shows you how to make a Guy Fawkes Mask...

------------------------

Heh. NYT might actually get it

At a Catholic summer camp, Kelly was struck by the reverence of the Latin Mass.

“It’s quiet,” she said. “People are paying attention. In the English Mass, it’s noisy. There are babies crying. But here people are completely focused on God.”

My take exactly...it's not Latin per se but the "whoppie for us" versions of the modern mass that drive Catholics into other churches.

Quote of the day

Philosophy has several branches, but on one tree. The good, the true, and the beautiful can be distinguished, and to some degree isolated in the foreground. Yet in the background they coalesce. We speak of the beauty of a moral act, and everyone knows what that means, including those who deny that they know. We speak of “truth to nature” in a drawing, and say that a song is “good.” Each virtue points towards a convergence, where “the fire and the rose are one.”

The question of how to live can never be reduced to law and politics. There is also, to be urgently considered, the question of beauty. Our “machine for living” cannot be very efficient, if it is ugly, and especially if it excludes the possibility of moral, ethical, and aesthetic beauty.

Family News

I will be flying to Robin's today.

Yahoo email is down, so if you need to contact me, send an extra copy to this blog's email address.

Fishing can be dangerous

MANILA (Reuters) - A powerful explosion ripped through a residential village south of the Philippine capital Manila on Thursday, killing four people and wounding two, police said.

Fidel Posadas, police chief in Cavite province, said a large cache of dynamite stored in one of the houses in Bacoor town likely caused the blast but investigators were still trying to find out what set it off.

Illegal dynamite fishing still occurs in the Philippines and along the Cavite coastline.

----------------
Dynamite fishing is illegal, of course...but with the large coastline it still is used.
Not only does it destroy the coral reef, but as this explosion shows, it is dangerous...

GIFT ITEM OF THE DAY

HTML Earrings......Buy them at Etsy, of course...

Headlines below the fold

China says: NO BIBLES to the Olympics...wonder if they will ban rosaries, icons, and Korans?
--------------------

And the Pope told off the Saudi King, reminding him of the "invisible man" (and women) should have freedom of religion too...
------------------

And what does the MSM do when a dictator has his supporters shoot non violent protesters?
Myamar: headlines.
Pakistan: Headlines.
Venezuela? Ignore, and report the glowing comments of the latest bimbo who goes there...
----------------------

And now the really important news: Lileks says Tribbles is on line PDF
He also discusses marrow flan and mubblefubbles...

Photo of the day

From Michael Yon's website:

Thanks and Praise: I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome.

A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from “Chosen” Company 2-12 Cavalry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John’s, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope.

The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. ” Thank you, thank you,” the people were saying. One man said, “Thank you for peace.” Another man, a Muslim, said “All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.” The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers. (Videotape to follow.)

Joke of the day

A nice, calm and respectable lady went into the pharmacy, walked up to the pharmacist, looked straight into his eyes, and said, "I would like to buy some arsenic."

The pharmacist asked, "Why in the world do you need arsenic?"

The lady replied, "I need it to poison my husband."

The pharmacist's eyes got big and he exclaimed, "Lord have mercy! Are you crazy? I can't give you
arsenic to kill your husband.That's against the law! I'll lose my license! They'll throw both of us
in jail! All kinds of things will happen. Absolutely not! No way!"

The lady reached into her purse and pulled out a picture of her husband in bed with the pharmacist's wife.

The pharmacist looked at the picture and replied,

"Well now, you didn't tell me you had a prescription."

Your email of the day from Tia Maria

Exciting video of the day

Watching food rot...

Video: Time lapse footage of the egg-cam experiment After more than 50 days, a pioneering online experiment to test a suggestion made by a Nobel prizewinner has vindicated his prediction that egg white is amazingly resistant to decay.

Craft item of the day

How to make a pop up bunny

pdf

Gift Item of the day

LINK
but the bad news is that it is one of a kind collector's item...and not for sale...

Red Wine Headache: The culprit revealed

The culprits are biogenic amines, such as tyramine and histamine, and are naturally found in wine and other fermented, aged and pickled foods such as chocolate, cheese, olives, nuts and cured meats. They can also cause high blood pressure, heart palpitations and elevated adrenaline.

and there is a device to detect the culprits...
LINK
says: "Oddly enough, the technology the amine detector is based on was originally funded by NASA to try to find life on Mars..."...

The bad news? right now the device is the size of a briefcase...

Biggest structure in the universe

The Sloan Great Wall...

Of course, others insist the great blob is bigger...

Anatomy lesson for today

Ballon anatomy by Jason Freeny
from Streetanatomyblog...

memo for today

Headlines below the fold

I know it's around here somewhere:
Big Chunk of the Universe is missing....

No, nothing going on folks, just ignore...
North Korea dismantles nuclear reactor....my take on it on BNN HERE
now if they could only figure out what the NorthKoreans were doing at that Syrian reactor that the Israelis bombed...

What's wrong with this picture?
Mural on Phillipine press freedom gets censored...story has photos of the alterations...

And here is a nice fuzzy headline: Pirates free Taiwanese ship...LINK2

Why bless their little hearts...but of course, don't mention the reason they released the ship was that the big bad US Navy sort of said: Go ahead, punk, make my day...

The latest fishing vessel freed by the U.S. Navy had two Taiwanese and 12 Chinese crew members aboard when it was hijacked 137 miles off the coast of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, in May....
Two other boats hijacked by Somali pirates in May were freed after U.S. Navy personnel spoke to them by radio.

Good news from Afghanistan

The public health infrastructure is slowly being built, and as a result the children's death rate is down. The UKTimes estimates that 90 000 kids stayed alive last year due to improvements.

Interesting stuff on the net

The Freeper Archeology page has lots of nice links this week. (political site probably not work friendly..so I'll post the original article links)

They have the Tut Photos...FRLINK...APLINK...
Best comment: Worst case of athlete's foot I ever saw.

They link to this 3D computer tour of Persipolis...LINK

30 000 years ago, people started living longer...the latest theory is that the "grandmom" effect allowed elders to pass down their wisdom to the young, and led to strengthening community ties...
----------

Using numbers to predict the future? LINK


And then an article on the genetics of Jewish ancestry...

American 9-11 hero controversy

Screwloosechange Blog has a discussion on the controversy about what caused the Pulmonary fibrosis death of 9-11 responder/hero Zadroga.

There is evidence on autopsy that he must have injected pills, since talc etc was found inside blood vessels. On the other hand, glass and dust were found in his lungs...and inhaled particles is of course a known cause for various occupational lung diseases.

Both sides are arguing, since if it was drugs that caused his disease his family won't get compensation...yet it ignores another question: was his "recreational drug use" actually self treatment of post traumatic stress syndrome?

Not all druggies use it to get high...many have severe mental problems before they use drugs, and the drugs compound the problem...

That is why the VA treat alcoholism in war veterans as a service connected disability...

PODCAST OF THE WEEK

Father Greeley has a podcast...

Craft item of the day

a LIFESIZED JABBA THE HUT PUPPET

Recipes of the day

What do you do with leftover candy?

Well, if it's chocolate, make candy cookies. LINK
------------------
Recipe of the day: Potatoes/veggies India style...LINK

Gift Item of the day

Want to recycle your old vinyl records?

Well, "Vling!" fashions them into jewelry.
.
.
.
.

Hiro is a geek and a Hero

"...Masi Oka, also known as "hey, that's the guy from Scrubs", has just been "chosen" to be the OLPC Global Ambassador. His qualifications? Being a huge nerd kid (he was on a cover of Time for genius kids because his friend's dad was the photographer), working as a nerd at ILM (even while shooting Heroes), and looking like a nerd—three qualifications we meet as well...
(for non geeks, ILM is a special effects company).


Businesswire has this:

OLPC was founded by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte to design, manufacture and distribute laptop computers that are sufficiently affordable to provide every child in the world access to new channels of learning, sharing and self-expression.

“Being a part of a global effort that is enabling children to learn, grow and succeed in life is both tremendously gratifying and important to me,” said Masi Oka. “I’m very excited about this opportunity to represent One Laptop per Child and bring my love of technology and education to the global community.

Shhh...good news on ...

The UK Times notices good news: Things are improving in Iraq and as for the rest of the world, there have been no major terror attacks for awhile...
Yup. Terror attacks keep getting thwarted...even last week's Manila Mall explosion was sewer gas, thanks to the PNP breaking up a terrorist safe house in the southern suburbs of Manila that was planning to place high tech bombs in malls during the holidays.

The more conservative UKTelegraph notices that the press is starting to notice the downward curve of violence in Iraq too....

Howie Kurtz notices the press noticing Hillary playing the "little girl" card...hopefully she will ignore her advisers and start showing her strength. I mean, if she can't take on Tim Russert, how will she fare against the Mullahs?

Bad news: Indonesian volcano ready to explode...may cause global cooling like MT. Pinatubo...but unlike Pinatubo they haven't managed to evacuate everyone...

Your HelloKitty Video of the day

(Headsup from HelloKittyHell)

Oh yes: There actually is a HelloKitty Airline...One was parked at the next gate when we landed at Nagoya...luckily it wasn't our plane...

There are sharks and there are nuts

I once mentioned Ron Paul on another blog as a side comment, and within two hours I got three different commenters posting comments that "corrected" me.

The thing is, I live in the Philippines, and posted the article which was not about Paul, at 2 pm and the comments were there by 5 pm....but the Philippines is 12 hours difference from the US.

Apparantly his supporters have nothing to do but google articles on obscure blogs all through the night.

My take is that this guy's followers are nuts, and that no one in Oklahoma ever heard of him, so why pay attention to the loony fringe.

So I thought this paragraph from Time was hilareous:

Representative Tom Tancredo, another long-shot GOP candidate, tells me that after a debate in New Hampshire, one of his staffers walked up to a guy in a shark costume and asked him if he was a Ron Paul supporter. "No. They're all nuts," replied the shark. "I'm just a guy in a shark suit."

(Headsup the corner)

and yes, I moderate posts on this blog ever since someone commented he wanted to blow up Israel with nukes....

Cat!

They have sequenced the genome of a cat.

This should help in research on retinitis pigmentosa and HIV (which is similar to cat leukemia, an infectious disease that has killed several of my cats).

Cinnamon however doesn't seem impressed.

PONG!

Your timewaster of the day from those crazy cats at the corner....

The Day of the Dead

Most people don't realize that the idea behind Halloween is the next day. Halloween is short for "All Hallows eve", or All Saint's day. In Catholicism November first is All Saint's day, for those who died before us and are in heaven, and then All Soul's day, for those who need to be purified before getting into Heaven.

So in the Philippines, it is the day to visit the graves of one's loved ones.

This is not a sad thing, but more joyful: In our area, most of the graves are above ground, because of the high ground water level.

Lolo's mother is in a concrete box on a small plot with two other relatives. The plot is 8x10 foot, and surrounded by a wall. There is a little shelf to put candles and a flower vase.

The relatives who died more recently have a slightly larger plot with a roof and benches along the side.

The really rich people have an open house, with bars on the side. Presumably to keep out thieves.

On November first, the dirt road to the cemetary is packed with families. The street vendors are there with everything from candles to drinks to sweets to toys (so the kids don't get into trouble while the adults visit). Nor are the kids the only ones who might be too loud and boisterous:

Police said that so far they have not arrested anyone for sneaking in alcoholic beverages, playing cards, pointed and sharp objects and for playing loud music.

YUM!

Dustbury links to a site selling semi edible footware...made of birdseed...

food of the day

headsup from grouchyoldcrippleblog