August 31, 2015

Best teacher comment about a student's paper ever!

Bwahahaha!

August 30, 2015

Oliver Sacks has passed.....

http://nyti.ms/1JtJ778

He was a wonderful writer who opened my eyes to many worlds unknown to me.
Fair winds and following seas Dr.Sachs.
RIP....

August 21, 2015

Photos comparing Hurricane Danny and a Pacific Typhoon:

Oy!
This is what I'm afraid might happen in the Atlantic.

August 17, 2015

Mark Cuban says Trump doesn't have much money.

He has been tweaking Trump for a long time about this. He may be right.
If you read about Trump and his deals, you see that what he actually owns is questionable. In addition, he is always robbing Peter to pay Paul.

He may very well have billions. However, it's just as likely that if his finances are untangled, he may have much, much less.

If anyone might know, it's Cuban. He is a billionaire and well-versed in the ways of big money. He probably has used some. When the money reaches billions, checking all the trees in that forest is almost impossible.

Trump is threatening to spend 1B on his campaign. We'll see.

August 15, 2015

My thoughts on #BLM and the intense feelings it has aroused:

How can I help you?

I say this in all sincerity to those in the #BLM movement. I no longer know what to do to help or at least not make things worse. This comes from following posts on DU and interactions on Twitter. There is a lot of anger, pain, and frustration on all sides.

Even as I write this, I am not sure if what I am saying will be attacked. IMO there is a real crisis for PoC in this country. Any interaction with the authorities is rife with tension and fear. This has always been true, but it seems to have ramped up. That may be just because I wasn't paying attention. PoC are dying unnecessarily and those in power are acting with impunity. A tipping point was reached in Ferguson.

I understand the phrase #BLM and I know why the phrase "All lives matter" is so pernicious. People use it to deliberately dilute the very real killing of PoC over matters that should not even register as an offense. Many use it that way. However, do all people understand the urgency in the phrase #BLM and its meaning. I have seen people blocked on Twitter and called racists for even bringing this up.

In different cases I have been told to stand aside, or help the cause, or told I will never understand so I am useless. White supremacist has also been thrown around. I don't think this represents the core of #BLM but I no longer know. This is a diffuse movement much like OWS. The decentralization makes it harder to pin down leaders and focus on them. It also makes the message harder to discern when you begin to try to step in to join some way.

I want to help. I want to be supportive. I am trying to find ways to do so. I accept responsibility to find ways. My main move right now is to stand down and listen. That may be the best action for those with good intentions but who are also unsure. The anger being vented is doing nothing but destroying unity among those who should be working together.

If "Do no harm" is the best that can be achieved, then let that be enough for now. If not, the damage done may become irreparable.

Edit to add: I am not commenting on this again. I hesitated before writing this.

August 12, 2015

Good lawd! Look at this explosion in Tianjin a few minutes ago.

New link:

Whoa!

August 9, 2015

I have a question about the BLM protests.

Why aren't they appearing at Hillary rallies or those of the GOP clowns?
Bernie does need to understand their movement and what they are asking for. He should not be given a pass.
However, the others need those lessons more than any other people. It seems they are the ones that are being given a pass.
Bernie tries to live up to what they want. He may have fallen short but he is trying. He is an easy target for the protests because he won't give them a ration of s***. They get publicity of a sort but they do so at the expense of a candidate who is more open to them.
If they want to really protest, they need to walk the walk and take it to all those running. If not, it's sound and fury.

August 8, 2015

Dr.Frances Oldham Kelsey has passed. You should remember her name.

The sedative was Kevadon, and the application to market it in America reached the new medical officer at the Food and Drug Administration in September 1960. The drug had already been sold to pregnant women in Europe for morning sickness, and the application seemed routine, ready for the rubber stamp.

But some data on the drug’s safety troubled Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, a former family doctor and teacher in South Dakota who had just taken the F.D.A. job in Washington, reviewing requests to license new drugs. She asked the manufacturer, the William S. Merrell Company of Cincinnati, for more information.

Thus began a fateful test of wills. Merrell responded. Dr. Kelsey wanted more. Merrell complained to Dr. Kelsey’s bosses, calling her a petty bureaucrat. She persisted. On it went. But by late 1961, the terrible evidence was pouring in. The drug — better known by its generic name, thalidomide — was causing thousands of babies in Europe, Britain, Canada and the Middle East to be born with flipperlike arms and legs and other defects.
<snip>
More:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/science/frances-oldham-kelsey-fda-doctor-who-exposed-danger-of-thalidomide-dies-at-101.html

RIP Dr.Kelsey!

August 5, 2015

BREAKING:The first piece of debris found was from the missing plane.

@NBCNews: BREAKING:
Officials confirm plane fragment found on Reunion Island is from missing MH370

August 5, 2015

During WWII, the US planned to drop 1000s of bats with tiny bombs on Japan

Imagine: a quiet, tense night in the middle of wartime. A plane rips through the air above your city, rupturing the stillness. The bay doors open, and out whistles a bomb. It drops and drops. Everyone braces. But when it explodes, the city is filled not with the flash of impact, but with hundreds and hundreds of tiny, whirling bats.


This ridiculous vision—in which Japanese cities were destroyed by a giant bomb full of bats that were themselves carrying tinier bombs—was called Project X-Ray, and it was but a claw's breadth from becoming a reality.

A canister to hold 1000 bats with their tiny bombs

It took a dentist to come up with such a nightmarish plan. Like many Americans, Dr. Lytle S. Adams was incensed by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, enough to turn his mind towards the war effort. Adams had just returned to his Pennsylvania home from a vacation in New Mexico, where, he remembered years later, he had been “tremendously impressed” by the Mexican Free-Tailed Bats that migrate through the state and roost by the millions in Carlsbad Caverns.

A bat with his tiny bomb

Adams read up on bats. He returned to Carlsbad Caverns and captured some of his own (it was a different time). Through study and observation, he realized that the little critters are war machines, perfectly calibrated for withstanding high altitudes, flying long distances, and carrying heavy loads—for example, timed bombs.
<snip>
Much more: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-almost-perfect-world-war-ii-plot-to-bomb-japan-with-bats

Thankfully this plan got nixed. They thought enough of it to actually carry out tests though.