Monday Morning Minutes

By
  1. So the lifting of the ban on creating new embryonic stem cell lines wasn't really a lifting of the ban at all. This new new speak is hard to keep track of.

  2. Everybody is all up in arms over how AIG has spent the money that the government has been throwing at it. It's a bit late now to try putting the toothpaste back in the tube. The millions that have already been paid out are gone and we ain't gettin' it back. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Hopefully somebody is paying attention and will stop giving them money.

  3. So is the economy totally in the tank or are things starting to look up? I've lost track of what the message is supposed to be this week.

  4. There is an unsavory whiff of protectionist xenophobia about this:

    Amazing how Americans managed to get jobs with the glut of foreigners (we're talking legal workers here) taking all the good jobs before we started throwing money at failing companies.

  5. Mexico is disintegrating from within, has been for years. The border area is over run by lawless drug gangs and corrupt government officials. Colour me surprised. This is the country who's government printed comic books detailing how to illegally cross the Mexico U.S. border. U.S. government officials say now is not the time to militarize the U.S. Mexico border.
    Mexican officials say the violence killed 6,290 people last year — and more than 1,000 in the first eight weeks of 2009. Warring drug cartels are blamed for more than 560 kidnappings in Phoenix in 2007 and the first half of 2008, and killings in Atlanta, and Birmingham, Ala.

    I'm wondering how much worse it's got to get for the government to take that step.
    Rufe said while the violence along the border in Mexico is appalling, violent crimes have not increased in U.S. border cities as a result. He said kidnappings are up, but violent crime is down.

    "We're not so concerned, at least at this point, about that violence spilling over into our cities," he said.

    So lots more people on the U.S. side of the border have to die before the government will act?

  6. HOw could I forget the one year anniversary of the implosion of the political career of former governor Eliot Spitzer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

What's in a flower?

By
Specifically hydrangea flowers. In this post I pointed out that anthocyanin (a family of plant pigments) appears blue at high pH, red at low pH and is responsible for the wide variety of colours in hydrangea flowers. Ilona pointed out that , "in hydrangeas you lower the ph for blue flowers (more acid) and raise it for pink (more alkaline)." I did a bit of checking and found that this is the case . At lower soil pH hydrangea flowers do appear blue and at higher soil pH they appear red. But soil pH is not the only thing that affects the colour of hydrangea flowers. It appears that pH inside the plant cell has an affect as well: Sepal Color Variation of Hydrangea macrophylla and Vacuolar pH Measured with a Proton-Selective Microelectrode Anthocyanin changes its color depending on pH (Goto 1987, Brouillard 1988, Goto and Kondo 1991). In strong acidic conditions it shows red, in neutral, purple and in alkaline, blue. But generally the vacuolar pH of plant cells is weakly aci
Read more

Treating autism as traumatic brain injury

By
I've been doing research into autism, dyspraxia, how the normal brain works, and how an autistic/dyspraxic brain works (or doesn't work). Traumatic injury to different parts of the brain can cause the same problems suffered by autistic and dyspraxic children. Compare this list of the functions of different parts of the brain and the problems caused by injuries to those areas with these descriptions of dyspraxia and autism. What is Developmental Dyspraxia? Developmental dyspraxia is a disorder characterized by an impairment in the ability to plan and carry out sensory and motor tasks. Generally, individuals with the disorder appear "out of sync" with their environment. Symptoms vary and may include poor balance and coordination, clumsiness, vision problems, perception difficulties, emotional and behavioral problems, difficulty with reading, writing, and speaking, poor social skills, poor posture, and poor short-term memory. Although individuals with the disorder may b
Read more

Battlestar Galactica needs more colour?

By
Here are the letters I mentioned in the previous post. The one that started it (I'm guessing these letters were written after the show's first airing at the end of 2003): Galactica Needs More Diversity The problem I had with Battlestar Galactica was there were no major and very few minor African American characters. There were no Black men in the show at all or if they were, they had virtually no screentime. In the original series, Boomer and Tigh were both played by African American actors. In this rendition of Battlestar, those characters were played by Asian and White actors. In the Caprica city, there no African American extras. On the Galactica's bridge, there was only one African American actress. Another Black actress could be found playing a religious official that swore in the new President of the colonies. This was very troubling to me. Do you not want African Americans to watch your show? Do you want to project the idea that African Americans are not part of the
Read more