Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Terms and Phrases for the New Year
Here's a coupla terms I read recently which might become Key Phrases of 2004: Neuroethics -- the branch of medical [and social] ethics arising from the increase in the amount/types of psychoactive drugs, fMRI**, and, most interesting to me, the developing area of brain/computer interfacing. rationing by hassle -- the phonomenon whereby HMOs deny services by making the hoops too arduous to jump through. Especially for sick people. oy. [sometimes I'm glad I'm outta that whole deal. Pay as ya go is workin' for me.] **FMRI [Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging] is a technique for determining which parts of the brain are activated by different types of physical sensation or activity, such as sight, sound or the movement of a subject's fingers. This "brain mapping" is achieved by setting up an advanced MRI scanner in a special way so that the increased blood flow to the activated areas of the brain shows up on Functional MRI scans.Spammentors [die, bastards, die!!]
Simon L Garfinkel, of MIT, not the other one, led me to James Seng's MTPlugin Capcha Turing Test which puts an image-based [ie not text/not bot readable] security code number in a little box in your comments page. I'm downloading it now -- after downloading the new Stuffit version which insisted that I download it first *sigh* Aahh, crap! It's one of those gotta-be-smarter-than-*that*-kid things. "#1 Check if you have GD.pm installed (use the command perldoc GD)" Foiled at #1 ! Dang! Well, if you're well versed in electron herding, give it a try and let me know how it works. I'll be over here in the corner hunting for my GD.pm. The blog blogspam has a page of options, including Jay Allen's MTBlacklist -- also an exercise for the more erudite among us.Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Yep -- no connection whatsoever . . .
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) 12.30.03 U.S. forces operating in the so-called Sunni Triangle -- the region of Iraq most loyal to captured former dictator Saddam Hussein -- found a significant weapons cache that included al Qaeda literature and videotapes, the U.S. military said Tuesday. ...Some of the items were found hidden in a false wall, the military said. The troops also found a British-made body armor plate with a bullet hole. ...The military did not say how it found out about the weapons, but a member of the Iraq Governing Council has said in recent days that Saddam has begun giving interrogators information about weapons arsenals used by insurgents to attack coalition forces.
Interesting, non? ...er, nein? ...uh, eh?
ThanQ! Michelle @ Command Post
Canadian Humour, eh?
Go See . . . Shiny Happy Gulag, "A Rebel Yell from the People's Republic of Canada," author of Osama Sighted in UK Pet Shop. Appears they're not all ..er, impolite.*applause*
Patterico says it well:IAEA teams have been visiting Libya for years and knew nothing about the equipment they saw Sunday. Some of it was found along dirt alleys in urban neighborhoods. Even permission to allow surprise inspections would not guarantee discovery of a nuclear weapons program. "Low-level programs like this are difficult to detect. They can be run in a garage," ElBaradei said. "You would have to be lucky or have very good intelligence to run across it. We're doing a lot of soul-searching. "
The smarty-pants types who pretend that it was possible for us to know exactly how far Saddam had gotten with his nuclear weapons program -- and who thought inspectors would solve everything -- would do well to emulate ElBaradei's soul-searching.
"Smarty-pants" -- [snork]
Nix on the "Downers"
December 30 - 4 pm ETWASHINGTON Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman on Tuesday announced a list of new restrictions to further enhance the safety of the American beef supply, including a meatpacking ban on the use of sick "downer" cattle like the one discovered last week with mad cow disease. She also announced bans against the use of small intestines and head and spinal tissue from older cattle in the U.S. food chain, as well as changes in slaughterhouse techniques with the aim of preventing accidental contamination of meat with cow nerve tissue. Mad cow disease is spread through such brain and spinal cord tissue. "Sound science continues to be our guide," Veneman said.
Bless ya, ma'm.
Under the new regulations, the sick cow slaughtered in Washington state on Dec. 9 would not have been allowed to enter the U.S. food chain.
Meat Spread Over Five States?!? that was one big cow . . .
Go ahead -- point out how silly the media panic-frenzy is relative to the facts. You'll be torn to shreds by the illiterati who are so deeply invested in creating fear -- either as a revenue source or as shiny object of distraction [SOoD]. The major *fix* in this situation was accomplished when the requirements for manufactured feed where changed in 1997. Our best option might be to launch a public education campaign to inform people of the facts of BSE. It will be difficult as the major political and media push will be to effect arcane and byzantine controls on the production and distribution of beef and beef products, instead of actually dealing with the facts. But, moo at windmills I must: The short-course: [executively summarized from An Introduction to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy [BSE] and the Prion Diseases by Don A Franco, DVM< MPH< DVPM] BSE - aka "mad cow disease" - is an entirely new disease entity in cattle, first diagnosed and described in Great Britain in November 1986. It is described as a sub-acute neurodegenerative transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. Comparable to, but not the same as scrapie in sheep and goats, chronic wasting disease in deer and elk, transmissible mink encephalopathy and feline spingiform encephalopathy in kitties, it is also likened to human diseases such as: Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), kuru (restricted to cannibals in Papua New Guinea), Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome, and fatal familial insomnia (FFI). When identified as a result of transmission of the BSE infection in GB, the resulting condition was termed variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease [v-CJD]. Although not universally agreed upon, the majority believe that the disease is caused by a prion, a normal cell protein found on nerve cell membranes, gone bad. [see Stanley Prusiner, MD awarded a Nobel for its discovery] Unlike a virus or bacterium, prions are resistant to physical and chemical treatments and do not create immune system or inflammatory responses. Having no nuclei acid for reproduction, prions don't act like the usual infectious agents. Apparently, the diseased state of a prion protein involves protein folding and interactions and thence off into darkest bio-chemistry land. Characteristics: --Slow, always fatal, transmissible diseases of the central nervous system in mammals. --Disease takes from months to decades to appear. --The infectious agent in cattle is predominantly limited to the brain, spinal cord, and in general nervous tissues. --The infectious agent has not been detected in muscle tissue, which is what steak and burgers are made of. Cut back on the cow-brain stew. To really oversimplify, the best guess of those studying the disease traces its origin in GB to a change in the rendering processes of animal proteins for animal feed. It is thought/theorized that these changes may have allowed an infectious agent previously killed by the rendering process. [When you hear PETA talk about "cows eating cows," kindly do not think of cattle munching on juicy steak bones. The animal feed product produced by rendering is a completely broken down protein which comes in powder form and is included in pellet feeds. The rendering industry's processing methods kill off infectious agents through long-time, high temperature treatment. The timing and temperature aspects are the part of the rendering process which was changed in GB and which is part of the investigation of the origin of BSE. This aspect of the rendering process has not been changed in the US.] The one [1] animal in Washington state came from Canada. Part of Dr Franco's conclusion:Speculation became rampant, with the media indulging themselves to the fullest. One prognosticator of doom, an academic, heightened his predictions forecasting up to 500,000 deaths from nvCJD by 2000. A research microbiologist especially attuned to the "Last Judgment" philosophy, completely fascinated even the most virulent pessimist by estimating, based on a worst case scenario, as many as 10 million people might develop nvCJD by 2010, approximately one fifth of the population. Drama and emotion became prevalent, and the communication of scientific assessments failed to compete. In reality, regulators were forced into a "two minute offense" - a situation most disdainful to government technocrats, who really prefer the studied approach in the evaluation of considerate options, rather than the "boiler room" pressure of politics and demanding consumerism. Any time science is not a solid basis for a major part of the regulatory decision, serious problems could emerge ...
Biochemist and snarker of the first order! What a guy. I know y'all are too smart to be panicked by media bull-dazzle, but help spread the word. There is a much greater chance of being killed by the flu, hit by a falling terrorist-downed airplane, and winning the lottery without benefit of ticket purchase -- all on the same day -- than to know someone who gets "mad cow disease" from a cheese burger.
The rest of the cow . . .
99% of every beef animal is used as source material for other industries including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and textiles. I've listed a few below: Household and Everyday Things bone china baseballs, footballs [contrary to popular rumor], soccer balls, basket balls... pet foods, bone meal dog biscuits, doggie chew toys vinyl boots and shoes, belts, jackets, purses, luggage ... paints candles cosmetics [tallow provides glycerine] lipsticks and moisturizers crayons photographic film plastics deodorants shampoo/cream rinses/conditioners laundry and dish detergents hand soaps, dish soaps, shaving cream textiles phonograph records [phono- what ?!?] fabric softeners floor wax [and dessert toppings!] toothpaste glue insecticides violin strings [nope, not cat -- cattle] Food Steak and burgers Sausages, and sausage casings; milk and cheese and ice cream and yoghurt [Wander Off -- Wander Back
I feel like I've been disconnected a long time from this here ol' blog -- and the rest of the world. It was nice. And now I'm ready to get back to it all. Well, most of it. It rained a lot 'round here yesterday and I've got some ditch-clearing muscles that I was previously unaware of. *ahem - groan* More to do later today but I felt the urge to catch up. I heard a little byte from John Kerry on the radio [interview] the other day, which killed him in my view [as if he had ever been a "contendah" . . .] It went something like this:The reasons this administration has put forth for this war [Iraq] are complex and complicated ...
...uh, yeah. "Complex and complicated" is a fair appraisal of the actual situation, I would say. Kerry? no:
...My [Kerry's] reasons would be simple and easy to understand.
Thank you and don'tcallus. This ...er, fellow's grasp of world politics seems shaky at best if he thinks he can make the Middle East situation "simple and easy to understand," but what really galls me [gauls?] is the assumption about the electorate [that's you 'n' me, kids] inherent in this little bit of pedantry: Things must be made s i m p l e for those fools the voters. They cannot grasp "complex and complicated;" and "of course," they will not even try.
More of the DemoCon's condescension. [Thank you for sharing, and byte me!] Are there *really* any people, even voters, who like being talked down to?!? Who is in this party, anyway? Do they all believe they are the talkers-down-to and "someone else" is the talked-down-to?!?
sheesh. "Delusional-cratic Party"
Friday, December 26, 2003
The Council Has Spoken ! !
Inane Moonbat Barking by Alpha Patriot and, Gandalf the Unilateral by The Politburo Diktat Full results of the vote are over at The Watcher's Spambots: byte hot bits and die!! [Thanx, Watcher!]Perspective
As we head into the time of year when the holiday maddddness is over and we look forward to a New Year -- fresh page, new start, uncharted territories and all -- it is time to scout out new perspectives. Michael W Davidson and the Florida State University have put together a little page called The Powers of 10 which gives us a goodly start. I highly recommend it though it will take a little time for those of slower connection speeds. Well worth the wait. Do a few post-holiday dinner sit-ups while ya wait! Here's a little backgroundon the concept:The original Powers of Ten concept was advanced by Dutch engineer and educator Kees Boeke, who first utilized powers to aid in visualization of large numbers in a 1957 publication entitled " Cosmic View, the Universe in 40 Jumps ". Several years later, in 1968, architect Charles Eames, along with his wife Ray, directed a "rough sketch" film of the same concept and finally completed the work (entitled the " Powers of Ten ") with the assistance of Philip Morrison in 1977. Other notable contributors to this effort include Philip's wife Phylis, who has assisted in translation of the concept into several beautifully illustrated books that are currently still available through the booksellers.
ThanQ! Pops
Whew ! ! !
Hope you made the most of all your Holiday Experiences! We had a grand old time at the extended-family blow out -- no worries and good food and better company. I made too many stuffed mushrooms as all the more wacked out family members chose this year to stay home/away/wherever, and I left our hostess with too many truffles and chocolate covered cherries/raisins/macadamia/walnuts/candied orange peels. It'll take her a while to find the box of extras, tho. [heh heh] Ah, she's got teenagers and houseWednesday, December 24, 2003
May all your dreams come true
Merry
Christmas!!
to all
...and to all a Good Night ! !
I'll be back blogging on the 26th!Saturday, December 20, 2003
Patterns
I'm guessing that the Spammentors pick posts by keyword as they return again and again to the same one. Clearly they're unclear on the concept of blogs or they would know that spamments on a post from May 16 is futile. No one but me will read them -- and I don't read them. I wonder if it's like a boilerroom of telemarketers who get credit for every "cold call" they make, regardless of results? Seriously. One comment in a current post on a big blog, even if it was removed in minutes, would actually be seen by some people. The current method produces only annoyance. Guess I'll hafta learn how to use BlackList. UPDATE: Well -- guess I'll just hafta muddle along manually. While Black List sounds like a good idea, the installation instructions are Greek to me! "Ridiculously easy," my aunt fannie!!That's Offensive ! ! !
A manger scene drawing by [a] fourth-grader ...was recently excluded from a holiday picture display to be viewed by parents attending [a]...Christmas program ... because it might offend someone.
I want to know what kind of person it is who could possibly get "offended" by seeing a picture, or any other symbol, indicative of someone else's religion. Sure, some symbols or pictures may not be in line with my beliefs. Yeah, and? It may not resonate with my religious sensibilities. So what? The symbol is meaningful to someone else and, unless it encourages kicking puppies, dining on orphans, or killing/enslaving nonbelievers, it is really none of my bees wax. In fact, I imagine I might find it offensive of someone told me that one of my meaningful symbols was "offensive" to them. ThanQ! King of Fools
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