Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Paradise ...From Paris
"Steve Martin--An Object Of Beauty? I've heard that's a great book," he commented quietly, as I settled into the flight.
"Yes. It's excellent. I highly recommend it", I responded without looking up, attempting to suspend the conversation.
At the end of the flight, he sighed exasperated "Ah Baltimore. Another week in Paradise."
I avoided any interaction with him, as I was immersed in my book, and didn't particularly want to know about his life, or the purpose of his trip. I confess, his tease about 'pardise' (Baltimore is Paradise?) was too much to resist.
"Flying home?" I inquired. (to be continued)...
Good News
Man Officially Cured of HIV
For the first time ever, a man has been cured of HIV. The remedy may nearly have killed him, but it opens a door—just a crack—to hope that we may someday kill off the scourge for good.Strangely enough, the diagnosis that most concerned Timothy Ray Brown in 2007 was acute myeloid leukemia. HIV has been increasingly thought of as a manageable disease, though certainly a terribly burdensome one. What brought the 42-year old Brown under the care of Germany's Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin hospital was the more immediate threat his cancer posed.
The treatment Brown underwent was aggressive: chemotherapy that destroyed the majority of his immune cells. Total body irradiation. Finally, a risky stem-cell transplant that nearly a third of patients don't survive—but that appears to have completely cured Brown of HIV.
Imagine balancing a budget.
Liberals Howl as Christie Uses Cap-and-Trade $ to Balance Budget
AP
Gov. Chris Christie has said he is taking $65 million from the state's model cap-and-trade program to balance the state's $29.3 billion budget, but he is getting pushback from Democrats in the state Legislature.
The money comes from quarterly carbon permit auctions held by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an alliance of 10 Eastern states from Maine to Maryland. The governor said he also is planning on taking all of the proceeds from the next three quarterly auctions in 2010.
Dems have not learned.
Reid threatens to keep Congress into next year...
New spending bill totals $575.13 million per page...
Punishing the truthsayer
Punishing Heresy II: Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard
After Galileo Galilei was forced by the authoritarian establishment of his time to renounce his observation that the Earth revolves around the Sun, he's said to have said, "And yet it moves." The modern equivalent would be, "And yet homosexuality spreads AIDS."
The new archbishop of Brussels, Andre-Joseph Leonard, is being targeted by homosexualist groups, and has been condemned by the country's prime minister, after he said that AIDS is a consequence of risky sexual behavior, including homosexual sexual activity.
Homosexualist groups have accused Archbishop Leonard of "homophobia," after he pointed out in a book released in October that "AIDS at the beginning multiplied through sexual behaviour with all sorts of partners or else through anal rather than vaginal sexual rapports."
"When you mistreat the environment it ends up mistreating us in turn," he continued. "And when you mistreat human love, perhaps it winds up taking vengeance."
"All I'm saying is that sometimes there are consequences linked to our actions. I believe this is a totally decent, honourable and respectable stance."
The answer is yes.
WAS IT ALL JUST ONE BIG CON JOB? “Erin Brockovich” Town Shows No Cancer Cluster. “Hinkley, California, the town made famous in the Oscar-winning Julia Roberts movie Erin Brockovich, does not show any evidence of an increased rate of cancers.”
Good for the Adults. Get rid of the earmarks, get rid of the fat.
APAngry Republican senators — including Arizona Republican Jon Kyl — are threatening to scuttle the 1,924-page omnibus spending bill unless amendments and deeply-hidden earmarks are removed, while House GOP leader John Boehner warns, 'We will work to kill it,' if the Senate sends the bill over as is.
Trying too hard
The Washington Post Seems to Have Heard of this "Facebook" Site
A well-designed website should be clear, above all. No flashing GIFs (we miss you, 90s!), no obnoxious flash menus, no overwhelming lists of links. And heads up, WaPo website: it shouldn't be blanketed in insanely redundant Facebook sharing buttons.Paying people not to work does not boost the economy. He is way over his head.
Obama: Unemployment Benefits 'Biggest Boost' to the Economy
"This tax package does a couple of things immediately for economic growth in Florida. Number one, for those folks looking for work right now, it extends their unemployment benefits. Two million people across the country would lose their unemployment benefits at the end of this month if we did not move forward on this tax agreement. And economists say that not only is that good for those families, it's good for the entire economy. It's probably the biggest boost that we can give an economy because those folks are most likely to spend the money with businesses, and that gives them customers,"
A historic achievement that few will note.
Voyager spacecraft nears exit of solar system
This 2002 NASA handout shows one of the Voyager spacecrafts. NASA's Voyager...
The US space agency's Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached the outer edge of the solar system where wind from the Sun is no longer blowing outward, but sideways, NASA said.
The spacecraft was launched in 1977 and has since snapped images of Earth and other planets in the solar system and provided NASA with crucial information as it makes its long journey into outer space.
Faster, Please
Artist's rendering of white blood cells. Researchers have found that extremely low doses of the drug lenalidomide can stimulate the body’s immune-cell protein factories, which decrease production during aging, and rebalance the levels of several key cytokines – immune proteins that either attack viruses and bacteria or cause inflammation that leads to an overall decline in health.
'Fountain of Youth' Pill Could Restore Aging Immune System
ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2010) — UCSF researchers have identified an existing medication that restores key elements of the immune system that, when out of balance, lead to a steady decline in immunity and health as people age.
The team found that extremely low doses of the drug lenalidomide can stimulate the body's immune-cell protein factories, which decrease production during aging, and rebalance the levels of several key cytokines - immune proteins that either attack viruses and bacteria or cause inflammation that leads to an overall decline in health.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101213140945.htm
5 Ways to Have a 'Pearly' White Christmas
With holiday parties and lot’s of good cheer going around at this time of year, it’s also a good time to take a good look at that smile you or your loved one is flashing, or maybe a little embarrassed to do so at the office party this year. So here are 5 golden ways to give your smile a lift this holiday without crashing your wallet.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2010/12/14/ways-pearly-white-christmas/
Duh. Also, it is not about you, it is about the country.
'I Don’t Think There’s a Sense That I’ve Been Successful'
AP
"I don't think there's a sense that I've been successful," President Obama told Colorado's 9NEWS. "I think people still feel that over all, Washington is about a lot of politics and special interests and big money
Golden Globes: The King's Speech has 7 nominations
Film about George VI's relationship with speech therapist takes lead.
Britain 'more Thatcherite now than in the 80s' says survey
British Social Attitude report finds people less supportive of the welfare state than in the 1980s
- Britain is now more Thatcherite than when Margaret Thatcher was in power, with people much less supportive of the welfare state and the redistribution of wealth than in the 1980s, according to an authoritative study of the country's mood.
3 weeks off in the middle of a school year. Think O’s Justice Department would do this for a Jew that wanted 3 weeks for Yom Kippur?
In a civil rights case, the Justice Department said the school district in Berkeley, Ill., denied the request of Safoorah Khan on grounds that her requested leave was unrelated to her professional duties and was not set forth in the contract between the school district and the teachers union. In doing so the school district violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by failing to reasonably accommodate her religious practices, the government said.
Apparently Khan wants to see some sights in addition to paying her respects. She's insisting on three weeks off. In the age of statism run amok, this literally constitutes a federal case.
Imagine the guffaws if a Christian claimed that having to use regular vacation days to visit Jerusalem was a civil rights violation.
SMU 13th, Maryland 23rd hardest. Harvard 1st.
2011 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Most (and Least) Selective Admissions
I have extracted from the individual profiles of the 172 law schools all of the available data to rank the schools in six categories. I will report each day on one of the ranking categories.
Admissions Selectivity Rating: How competititve admission is at the law school, on a scale of 60 to 99. Several factors determine this rating, including LSAT scores and the average undergraduate GPA of entering 1L students, the percentage of applicants accepted, and the percentage of accepted applicants who enrolled in the law school. We collect this information through a survey that law school administrators completed for the Fall 2010 entering class.
Pepperdine Dean Finalists
- Richard L. Cupp (John W. Wade Professor of Law, Pepperdine)
- Robert B. George (McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director, James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton)
- Russell K. Osgood (former President, Grinnell; former Dean (and Tax Prof), Cornell)
- L. Timothy Perrin (Vice Dean and Professor of Law, Pepperdine)
- Deanell Reece Tacha (Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, 10th Circuit; former Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, Kansas)
Somali Pirates Ravage The Indian Coast
December 14, 2010: NATO recently issued a warning to merchant ships that Somali pirates were operating a few hundred kilometers off the Indian, Pakistani and Omani coasts. In other words, these pirates were now active from the west coast of India to the east coast of Africa and north to the Persian Gulf. Now that the pirates have demonstrated their ability to operate far (over 2,000 kilometers) from shore, it's no longer possible to just use naval patrols and convoy escorts. That worked in the Gulf of Aden, but father off the Somali coast, there is simply too much area to patrol. With ocean going mother ships, the pirates can operate anywhere in the region. Between the Gulf of Aden, and the Straits of Malacca to the east (between Singapore and Indonesia), you have a third of the worlds shipping. All are now at risk. Convoys for all these ships would require more warships (hundreds) than can be obtained.
O Admin comes through for Moslems again. Can’t remember when they did this for Christians or Jews.
Feds Sue School Over Muslim Pilgrimage
The federal government sued a suburban Chicago school district Monday for denying a Muslim middle school teacher unpaid leave to make a pilgrimage to Mecca that is a central part of her religion.
(Forget the fact that the Hajj comes in the middle of the school year)
Related somehow
Doc Busted for Tossing Mohammed Business Card
AP
Pakistani authorities have arrested a doctor on suspicion of violating the country's contentious blasphemy law by throwing away a business card of a man who shared the name of Islam's prophet, Muhammad, police said Sunday.
The blasphemy law has been widely criticized by human rights groups following the case of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death last month for insulting Islam
Green Jobs Not Growing as Expected
The Obama Administration channeled $90 billion of the $870 billion dollar stimulus package towards the new green economy.
The hope was that a national move from fossil energy to green energy would not only be good, long term, for the environment, but that the transition could also be a jobs' driver, which would help resuscitate the overall economy.
But two years into Obama's administration, the White House has reported it's helped create 224,500 green jobs, far short of the 5 million it had openly predicted.
Pickup trucks are real trucks.
How To Tow A Top Secret Spy Plane With A Pickup Truck
You may need a dually to tow a secret X37-B spy plane, but you certainly don't need a diesel engine. Or anything from the past ten years. God, I love heavy duty pickup trucks — tugging spy planesA beautiful smaller world
Who Would've Thought That Ten Million Facebook Friendships Could Be So Beautiful?
Paul, an intern on Facebook's data infrastructure engineering team, recently took a sample of about ten million pairs of friends from Facebook's data warehouse and plotted out their relationships. The result? A stunningly beautiful—and accurate—map of the world.Heated Clothes are a coming item
Power Yourself Up For 8 Hours With Milwaukee's M12 Heated Jacket
Running off the very same Red Lithium battery which charges Milwaukee's power tools, this heated jacket can hold a charge for eight hours. That's a full working day of cozy heat, spread across three carbon fiber heating zones.Get it now, for around $130 from Amazon or $119 from The Home Depot.
Men get shortchanged.
WHERE’S THE CIVIL RIGHTS COMMUNITY ON THIS? Not only are men disproportionately losing their jobs, but they’re also being shortchanged on healthcare: “Per capita health care spending for females was 32 percent more than for males. . . .
Should end the debate
QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND: Paul Gigot: “I love the symbolism of two Democratic presidents — not one, but two — endorsing Bush tax cuts, saying, ‘We need them crucially to help the economy’.”
Japan Plans Military Shift to Focus More on China
An American worked with Japanese sailors last week on the aircraft carrier George Washington.
TOKYO — In what would be a sweeping overhaul of its cold war-era defense strategy, Japan is about to release new military guidelines that would reduce its heavy armored and artillery forces pointed north toward Russia in favor of creating more mobile units that could respond to China’s growing presence near its southernmost islands, Japanese newspapers reported Sunday.
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