I haven’t had much to say recently. Between recovering from the visit of the 3 1/2 year old, and the sudden onset of an icky cold, I just haven’t had much to say. So…

If you were bored, here are the top ten things to be found on my website:

Yup. Other people besides me don’t know that puncuation is actually spelled punctuation.

And if you’re really really bored, there’s always Corn Cam or the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices (both old favorites)

Two days till my birthday and I think I’m coming down with a cold.

This is entirely unacceptable.

Where’s the complaint department?

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote that the campaign against terrorism notwithstanding, “a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation’s citizens.”

Inter arma silent leges?

Perhaps not.

Giant Eagle, probably in response to Kroger’s, has finally dedicated an entire aisle to organic items.

The aisle is located at the far end of the store, just opposite the bakery, and aisle that I never go down. It used to be “seasonal items” and it’s placement across from the bakery guaranteed I didn’t go down the aisle. I never need “seasonal items” and if I don’t see the doughnuts, then I don’t buy them.

But now organic items are there, so I have to walk down that aisle.
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Guess it’s true.

It’s one thing to know that we’ve spent a lot of money on the house this year–replacing the air conditioner wasn’t cheap.

It’s something else entirely to look at a graph of our spending for the past year and see, “GAH! We’re hemorrhaging money!”

Similar to the top 200 books, only different.

Bold is what I’ve seen, which is more than most people would expect, all things considered
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The Lions of Al-Rassan Guy Gavriel Kay

This is a very good, albeit very depressing book. Set in the same world as Sailing to Sarantium, this book describes the battles between the followers of Jad versus the Asharites.

If Sailing to Sarantium reminded me of Rome, this book reminded me of Spain. Of the Crusades. Of Christianity and Islam, with Judaism caught in between.

Read More about The Lions of Al-Rassan

Witches Abroad, Mort, Wyrd Sisters, Small Gods, Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett

I’m still going through Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. This set of books included three books about the Discworld witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick; another book about Death, and a book about the Gods of Discworld.

I think I liked Mort, where Death takes an apprentice, best of this group.

Read More about Witches Abroad, Mort, Wyrd Sisters, Small Gods, Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett

The Boy Who Drew Cats by Arthur A. Levine. Paintings by Frederic Clement

I first read this tale when I was in elementary school. It was one of the stories in my reading book (it was 4th, 5th or 6th grade, I can’t remember for certain), and for some reason, this tale stuck with me. Several years ago, Erin found me a copy of the story in a small collection of Japanese folktales, and it was just as I had remembered. (For this, I am eternally grateful to Erin.)

Read More about The Boy Who Drew Cats

Scientists in Norway are going to be accurately measuring and studying glaciers. These Autonomous Sub-Glacial Probes will be set deep into glaciers and measure temperature, pressure, and speed, and analyze the sediment.

Although the implications for studying global climate change are tremendous, what I find most fascinating is just the idea of it. Technology has advanced so far that we can place an electronic “rock” deep into the bowels of a glacier. It is advances like this that keep me from being overwhelmed by all the negative technological advances humanity makes.

You can also check out some pictures of glaciers.

Happy Belated Birthday West Virginia!

Yes, we are a separate state.
No, we’re not near the beach.
Yes, we do get snow here.

It’s so cold in parts of the building today, that I’m expecting frost and snow to appear in the hallways.

If we build a snowman, I’ll take pictures.

Rep. John Peterson, R-Penn., said if hunters support ending logging or road building in the Tongass, they’re misguided.

“I don’t know how many of you hunt, but my hunters hunt where people timber,” he said. “Old-growth forests don’t have a lot of wildlife because there’s no food there.”

What kind of idiot are they electing up there in Pa?
(via pericat)

It seems that medicine is once again proving that there is no easy path to weight loss and fitness.

Study results from researchers at Washington University School have found that lipsouction, while removing fat, does not improve health, as there is no decrease in rates of diseases associated with obesity.

I think that, despite what everyone thinks, there is no fast fat fix. I think this also underscores what I keep saying, which is that size isn’t a good indicator of health–diet and exercise are.

“This study underscores the need for the ‘old-fashioned’ method of eating less and exercising more to treat obesity. The metabolic benefits of weight loss seem to be related to achieving a negative energy balance — consuming fewer calories than you burn — rather than simply eliminating fat cells by liposuction.”

We’re in the basement when Michael says, “I think this is the…”
I quickly said, “Don’t say it.”
“fastest plumbing..”
“Don’t Say It!”
“repair job I’ve ever done.”
“Now you’ve done it.”

15 minutes later, I’m outside watering the new grass.

Michael comes out the basement door, holding the copper joint: “Wanna come to Lowe’s with me?”

Don’t forget that tomorrow (June 19th) is World Sauntering Day!

Go out and saunter!

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Yesterday morning as I was driving Michael to work, WV Public Radio was doing as news story on Thunder in the Hills, which is a bunch of people getting together to fire off lots of automatic weapons.

I absolutely loved the news report (go quickly, it won’t be there forever.)

He had some wonderful answers to her questions. (And I thought she did a good job asking the questions that people would want to know.)

Anyway, hurry and listen to the news segment before it’s gone. (Which reminds me, if anyone can help me figure out how to save that segement onto my hard drive, I’ll be grateful. Windows Media Player just confuses me a makes me feel stupid.)

More flower pr0n!

My daisies and black eyed susans look like they’ll be blooming in the next week or two, as will one of the mystery plants in the box on the front deck. The sundial plants and many of the low growing plants I got for ground cover are blooming, although the plants just aren’t very photogenic.

Must be bashful.

And since I’m home, I’m printing off the picture of my grandfather and his siblings so I can send the original back to my dad’s cousin. Since I’m conviently off work, this is also a good day to go to the post office.

If you’d like to see a copy of the picture, it’s here. Unlike some of the other pictures I have, it only needed a little bit of cleaning up.

The next picture is of Uncle Ben, who everyone remembers as always making people laugh.

They are here RIGHT NOW to replace our air conditioner. I even hear power tools.

I’d do the happy dance, but it’s still too stinkin’ humid.

ADDENDUM the First
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

The news that Southern Baptists vote to leave alliance doesn’t particularly upset me, as I’m not a Baptist, and I am disturbed by the ultra conservatism of the Southern Baptists.

But it did lead me wonder about the splits in the Christian church.

Certainly the Christian church was never a single, unified group, although following the council of Nicea, there was a small degree of unity until 1054, and the split of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox church. Following the Orthodox/Catholic split, things were relatively calm until the 16th century and the Protestant Revolution, after which such divisions became increasingly frequent, continuing today till we have almost innumerable Christian sects.

Each sect has its own slightly different set of beliefs, and typically asserts that all those who belong to a different sect, with a slightly different set of beliefs, are going straight to hell, those damned papists/heretics/infidels.

Is this really how Christianity was supposed to end up? Damning others for technical doctrinal positions? Spending time in debate over questions of doctrine instead of spending time helping others?

And you wonder why I don’t care for organized religion?

The FDA is likely to approve an implant that stimulates a portion of the brain as a treatment for depression.

The device which is already in use to treat severe epilepsy, is supposed to help moderate depresison through stimulation of the vagus nerve.

However, what I found most interesting about the article, were the quotes from the FDA panel, specifically those by A. John Rush who was testifying for Cyberonics Inc, the group hoping the expand the market for their product.

“We lost four of these individuals in the last 2 1/2 hours,”…basing that figure on the high suicide rate among patients with resistant depression.
…
“In the time to do another trial, we will lose another 1,000 patients a month, 36,000 if the trial takes three years.”

I’m not sure what else was said to the panel, but it seems to me that those statments are deliberately misleading, especially for a treatment whose randomized trial didn’t show statistically significant results. 15% improvement in the treatment group versus 9% improvement in the control group is not impressive, and certainly would not correlate to the saving of “1000 patients a month” as Rush seems to be implying.

Which reminds me: several medical groups, including the AMA, are pressing for a database of clinical drug trials. Much of this call comes after GlaxoSmithKlein was accused of supressing the results of clinical trials for Paxil in adolescents

This comes back to a long standing problem in research, which is that negative results are rarely published, for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it isn’t very interesting or exciting to say “we didn’t find anything”; such results are rarely going to be published in the leading journals. Secondly, if the trial or research was sponsored by a specific company for a specific product, that company is not going to want information published saying their product was ineffective.

The other option, which has been discussed, is the creation of a journal for publishing negative results. However, a database, preferably one available on-line, would be a good idea, because it would make knowledge of those trials widely available.