blond bimbo alert

heh. The Diplomad is not impressed.

Elizabeth McCord, has perfected the mouth-breathing stunned ox look. She plays the whole episode looking like, well, an ox gasping for air after being hit in the head by a defective stun gun. She is a "brilliant" ex-CIA analyst, who left the Agency on "principle" to become a "brilliant" University professor, and is recruited by the President, played by Keith Carradine, to become his new SecState

presumably they should have casted the lady with someone who is aging but graceful and intelligent looking, someone like Helen Mirren or Angela Lansbury...

 so tell us why the new TV show about a female secretary of  state shows a blond bimbo who is a ringer for Hillary?

does Hollywood think only blond bimbos should be cast as experts? Men can be 50 years old and greying, but only 30 something bimbos are cast for professionals and experts.


or better yet?

Why not cast an attractive black female as secretary of state?

Nah. That could never happen. Too much prejudice in Hollywood to try such a creative casting decision.

And no, we don't have the show here in Asia (yet).

Don't forget your towel

http://t.space.com/all/27275-space-station-s-42-crew-links-expedition-to-hitchhiker-s-guide

Family news

Lolo had the stomach flu all night. I had been vomiting but not sick, and Ruby had felt a bit sick too. We think it was the KrispyKreme donuts, since the timeline suggested it in each of us.(Ruby had them for breakfast, and we had them for lunch, and Lolo ate three at supper, but I didn't eat any later).

They were in the car from Manila so probably from being left out. Most food here is full of preservatives to prevent food poisoning, but I guess KrispyKreme uses more organic ingredients.


Today we are all feeling better...
The handiman is fixing stuff in the house, like broken windows, leaking gutters, and faucets/toilets that leak. Hopefully this will stop the toilet overflow in the bathroom and the dripping water down the windows every time it rains.

Podcast of the week

Gresham college has lots of nice podcasts (art, music, history, medicine, etc)

The one I listened to last night was the history of Polio vaccine.

I had two friends in gradeschool who developed polio, and two physician collegues, one who was in a wheelchair, who caught it from  patients.

More lectures on vaccines and infectious disease HERE.

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Went with the Wind

It's the 75th anniversary of the film Gone With The Wind.



link

headsup SenseOfEvents

Stuff around the web

There was some discussion that Putin would prevent Americans from using his rockets to go to the space station, but apparantly that was wrong.

A new US/Russian crew just launched there.

another uncovered story: SpaceX's Dragon is delivering cargo to the space station...

a big plus for private enterprise...

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

Another quiet story that is being ignored: A spacecraft from India has successfully reached Mars.

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Factoid of the day from TYWKIWDBI:

Siphonophores are of special scientific interest because they are composed of medusoid and polypoid zooids that are morphologically and functionally specialized. Each zooid is an individual, but their integration with each other is so strong, the colony attains the character of one large organism

-

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Who is paying for the "nuns on the bus" so beloved by Joe Biden to ride around supporting the Democratic party on a rock star type tourbus?..., and is taxpayer money being used to pressure the Vatican to change their doctrine and think that nuns "evolving beyond Christ" and supporting abortion is okay? LINK

father Z has more.

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Nothing makes Muslims more angry than rich outsiders telling them to celebrate EID with vegetarian meals using non halal condiments...

Dustbury also mentions the Oklahoma Muslims are anti jihadi types. And like most Okies, their anti Isis protest was done in a polite way...


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Rich white guy from canada thinks poor blacks in Trinidad should cut down their fossil fuel consumption.

Yeah. Use wood and deforest the islands instead.

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YUM! Hagfish slime

There was an episode on "dirty jobs" where the locals collected hagfish to sell to Korea, where they are a delicacy.



hagfish recipe.

Ah, but you can also use hagfish slime as a substitute for eggwhite. Hagfish slime recipe.

and there are other uses for these slimy creatures
including using their slime as filiments.
From PysOrg:

The slime's prodigious strength and even more remarkable fecundity has attacked the attention of several scientists now trying to replicate it in the lab. While scientists are just begining to understanding how the so-called gland thread cells (GTCs) that produce the slime might actually work, others are already seeking to commercialize the slime as a high performance fiber.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-09-ultimate-biofilament-hagfish-slime.html#jCp

however, before you look forward to a job removing slime from hagfish, the article notes that the scientists hope to put the slime making gene into a bacteria to produce the slime.

WTF headlines of the day

The five minute hate on facebook isn't working: Send in the astroturfing robots:

 Only 10 Twitter users account for almost 70% of all StopRush tweets to advertisers, amplified by illicit software. In addition, almost every communication from a StopRush activist originates from outside the State of the advertiser... (thus) “A small number of politically motivated out of-state activists are distributing target lists indiscriminately, and annoying small businesses until they give up the advertising deals that help them grow, or risk being unable to conduct business at all. It’s not even activism… it’s blackmail,” according to Brian Glicklich, Rush Limbaugh Show spokesperson.

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A couple blogs are passing on a story of two ebola patients "resurrecting" at their own funerals.

Diagnosing death is not easy in rural Africa, and the burials take place quickly. So if you starts very shallow breathing, have no obvious pulse, and are unconscious, you might be called dead and buried.

One of our teachers in Africa, a diabetic, instructed his students that if he "died", they should rush him to the hospital, because he would be in a diabetic coma, not dead.

Then there is the story of Teresa of Avila, who almost was buried but her father insisted he saw evidence she was breathing..

And once, in medical school, we had a patient in ICU who was declared dead, and had a pulse when they came to pick up the body.

 All those horror stories of premature burials could be true: Which is why they now enbalm people first.

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

EWTN had a discussion of Alien life last week with the Vatican astronomer.
would you baptize an extraterrestrial?



C2C types tend to see a conspiracy in this.


If contact to a Catholic tv station gives you hives, Here is the talk by him at SETI

uh oh: The demotion of Pluto was a Vatican Plot?

and some wag asked father Z how could we baptize an alien if they would burst into flame in water.

answer here

stuff around the web

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140923-amazon-greek-vase-translations-science/?sf4802010=1

Linguistic clues to scythian amazons

excuse the sloppy links...I am on my tablet

factoid of the day

Archbishop Sheen had an fbi file


http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/blog/15-fun-facts-from-archbishop-fulton-sheens-fbi-file/

and here are some of his talks.


http://www.proecclesia.com/page_free%20talks.htm

another sign that the end of the world is nigh

Miss America explains why sexual abuse was ok

http://jezebel.com/miss-america-was-kicked-out-of-her-sorority-for-abusive-1636095561

caution x rated

for later reading

http://www.strategypage.com/on_point/2014092323829.aspx

the problem is ignorance?

family news

Brownout all day so no blogging.

while Obama is sleeping

http://www.strategypage.com/strategytalk/default.aspx

the last two podcasts are about Asia.

stuff around the web

http://blog.castac.org/2014/09/let-it-flow-down-the-long-grey-line-the-west-point-class-ring-memorial-melt/

Gold from past heros keeps tradition àlive.

?................
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2755854/The-heart-evil-hostages-hidden-tunnels-Huge-intelligence-gathering-operation-focuses-Syrian-city-Raqqa-bid-Jihadi-John.html

Tucked in the report of atrocities:even goats had their genitals covered.

someone tell PETA

..........

Family news

Lolo lost his old watch last week, and we turned the place up and down looking for it, but couldn't find it.
the good news;
The laundress today found it in the basket of dirty laundry from last Friday (that she hadn't done due to the heavy rain from the typhoon).

So Lolo is happy, and we are giving thanks to the Lord, St Anthony, and of course, the laudress (along with a small "gift").

--------------
The bad news:

Joy took her sister back to Manila. She has been here all weekend with her brother and parents visiting.
She has to talk to her doctor: The biopsy is bad, so she is seeing if she can get into a trial for a new type of biological chemotherapy.

Keep her in your prayers.

Ruby went with them.

and pray that we get the harvest in okay: The last two typhoons hit north of here, but so far we are okay, and harvest is starting now.

Death panels? We don't have no stinkin death panels

On the other hand, the "architect" of Obamacare thinks we are useless eaters after age 75...

... (aging) It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.

yeah. Useless eaters. Being able to love, showing our children and grandchildren how to bear pain and disabilities with courage, keeping alive the memories of the past...all those things are not part of the mix.

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

so Palin was right....who wudda thot?

and maybe Palin derangement syndrome is real too...(via Instapundit)


-----------------------------
Professor Bob is blogging on the Crimean war, and today's podcast is on Florence nightingale.

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There is a lot of discussion on the crazyness of the Franklin expedition, why they died, and who ordered them to lug all those luxuries when going for food. Was it egomania? Hubris? Or lead poisoning from the badly sealed tin foods? Or vitamin A toxicity from eating polar bear livers? Or all of the above?

The discussion has reopened with the discovery of one of their ships in Canadian waters.

slate and the UKGuardian discusses the puzzle, Via TeaAtTrianon:


more here: NOVA 
and here:



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illiteracy

http://m.inquirer.net/newsinfo/?id=639632

it's a muslim thing.



Mostly in women.... and the clan fights will make things worse...

bananas

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/09/19/4090936.htm

rain

Rain all night from a small typhoon in the north.

Mild flooding here, but Manila is a mess due to rain and rivers still high from the drainoff from last week's typhoon.

internet going on and off here